Biomedical Engineering Seminar with Dr. Roderic Pettigrew, May 2.
BME Distinguished Seminar with featured speaker Dr. Roderic Pettigrew, Director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at NIH
Date: May 2, 2012
Location: LSE B01 (24 Cummington St.)
Time: 4:00 p.m., with a reception to follow
Perspectives on Convergence Science and the Public’s Health
Addressing the challenges in healthcare through biomedical science and innovation increasingly requires expertise from several disciplines such as chemistry, physics, mathematics, engineering, computer science, cell/molecular biology and genomics. The concept of scientists from different disciplines collaborating to form a new interdisciplinary team and achieve an important research goal has been termed “Team Science,” “Science at the Interface of Engineering, the Physical and Life Sciences,” and most recently, “Convergence Science.” This approach, as envisioned by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), is essential for realizing the vision of patient-centric, widely accessible, molecular medicine that is more personalized. Convergence Science approaches have already begun to show advances in a number of healthcare areas, including point-of-care systems, mobile health, image guided interventions, regenerative medicine, systems to accelerate the development of new therapeutics and molecular theranostics. This approach promises even greater advances in both the understanding and treatment of disease and in reshaping the practice of medicine in the 21st century towards personalized pre-symptomatic detection, preemptive treatment, wellness and ultimately prevention of disease.
About Dr. Pettigrew
Dr. Roderic PettigrewRoderic I. Pettigrew, Ph.D., M.D., is the first Director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the NIH. Prior to his appointment at the NIH, he was Professor of Radiology, Medicine (Cardiology) at Emory University and Bioengineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Director of the Emory Center for MR Research, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Pettigrew graduated cum laude from Morehouse College with a B.S. in Physics. He has an M.S. in Nuclear Science and Engineering from Rennselear Polytechnic Institute; and a Ph.D. in Applied Radiation Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Subsequently, he received an M.D. from the University of Miami School of Medicine in an accelerated two-year program,. Dr. Pettigrew has numerous awards including membership in Phi Beta Kappa and being named the Most Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Miami (1990). Dr. Pettigrew is the 2011 recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Award of the Biomedical Engineering Society. He has been elected to membership in both the Institute of Medicine, and the National Academy of Engineering of the US National Academies.