Governor Abbott Statement On Dr. Roderic Pettigrew, GURI Recipient, Winning National Science Board Vannevar Bush Award

AUSTIN, TX - Governor Greg Abbott today congratulated Roderic Pettigrew, Ph.D, M.D., for receiving the National Science Board's prestigious Vannevar Bush Award. Dr. Pettigrew is a founder of EnMed, a unique integrated engineering and medical school initiative of Texas A&M University in collaboration with Houston Methodist Hospital, located in Houston’s Texas Medical Center. Dr. Pettigrew was recruited to join Texas A&M's faculty in 2017 through the Governor's University Research Initiative (GURI), which aims to bring nationally-recognized researchers to Texas institutions of higher education.

'On behalf of the state of Texas, congratulations to Dr. Roderic Pettigrew on this well-deserved honor, and I thank him for the incredible contributions he has made to our nation,' said Governor Abbott. 'Dr. Pettigrew is true visionary and innovator in biomedicine and technology, and he has dedicated his career to improving the lives of others and developing solutions to society's most pressing healthcare issues. His work at Texas A&M and Houston Methodist has made a tremendous impact on the Lone Star State and the biomedicine and technology sectors worldwide.'

The Vannevar Bush Award honors lifelong science and technology leaders who have made truly exceptional contributions to the welfare of the nation through public service in science and technology, and in shaping public policy. The award, through its winner, recognizes the important role of science and technology in improving way of life.

Roderic Ivan Pettigrew, Ph.D., M.D. previously served as Director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he has since held a number of corporate leadership roles including Inaugural Institute Director in 2002. Pettigrew’s public service as the founding director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) at the National Institutes of Health helped transform the relationship between technology and medical research, integrating physics and engineering with life sciences to advance fundamental research and medical care. His science and technology leadership has, for example, advanced treatment for spinal injuries and enabled some chronically paralyzed men regain voluntary muscle movement and sensory function. Other Pettigrew projects have re-imagined the use of radiation in cancer treatments, pioneered the use of MRI to image the beating heart and quantify blood flow, championed point-of-care diagnostics and modeled the mechanobiology of atherosclerosis that is predictive of heart attacks.

Prior to joining Texas A&M University, Dr. Pettigrew taught at the Emory University School of Medicine as a Professor of Medicine, and the Georgia Institute of Technology as a Professor of Bioengineering. In recent years he has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences India. He has received the Pierre Galletti Award from the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the Distinguished Service Award of both the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and National Medical Association, the Pritzker Achievement Award of the Biomedical Engineering Society, and was the first winner of the Gold Medal of the Academy of Radiology Research. He also was awarded a Gold Medal from the Radiological Society of North America and received the Arthur M. Bueche Award from the National Academy of Engineering.