Roderic Pettigrew, Ph.D., M.D., director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) of the National Institutes of Health, will deliver the next Flexner Discovery Lecture on Thursday, March 2.
His lecture, entitled “Engineering Medicine for a Global Society,” will begin at 4 p.m. in 208 Light Hall. It is sponsored by the the Institute of Imaging Science and the Office for Diversity Affairs.
Pettigrew is known internationally for his pioneering work at Emory University School of Medicine in the 1990s involving four-dimensional imaging of the cardiovascular system using magnetic resonance (MRI).
Soon after being named NIBIB director in 2002, Pettigrew jointly led a national effort with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to create new interdisciplinary graduate training programs and later established the Quantum Projects program to address major healthcare problems.
Pettigrew also led national collaborative and international initiatives to develop low-cost and point-of-care medical technologies. He has called for and now leads a U.S.-India collaboration to develop unobtrusive/passive technologies for frequent recording of blood pressure to address the world-wide problem of hypertension.
A graduate of Morehouse College, Pettigrew earned a Ph.D. in Applied Radiation Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his M.D. from the University of Miami School of Medicine.
Prior to his appointment at NIBIB, he also was a member of the bioengineering faculty at the Georgia Institute of Technology and directed the Emory Center for MR (Magnetic Resonance) Research.
For a complete schedule of the Flexner Discovery Lecture series and archived video of previous lectures, go to www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/discoveryseries.
