BMES names Richards-Kortum distinguished scientist, lecturer

Rice University Professor Rebecca Richards-Kortum has been named the recipient of the Pritzker Distinguished Scientist and Lecturer award by the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES). She is the second Rice bioengineer to receive the coveted award. Antonios G. Mikos was honored in 2007.

The Pritzker award, which recognizes outstanding achievements and leadership in the field, will be given to Richards-Kortum during the annual BMES meeting in Austin, TX, October 6-9, 2010. At that time, she will deliver a plenary lecture that will later be published in the BMES journal Annals of Biomedical Engineering.

Richards-Kortum, the Stanley C. Moore Professor of Bioengineering, director of Rice 360°: Institute for Global Health Technologies, and founder of Beyond Traditional Borders, has established several nationally recognized programs in biomedical engineering research and education that address the need for lasting solutions to global health problems.

For two decades, investigations in her Optical Spectroscopy and Imaging Laboratory have integrated advances in nanotechnology and molecular imaging with optical and microfabrication technologies to improve the early detection of infectious diseases and cancer in various clinical and resource-poor settings around the world. The systems are easy-to-use, inexpensive, portable, and provide point-of-care screening and diagnosis without the need for a clinical biopsy.

Recently, collaborations between Richards-Kortum, scientists at Rice University's BioScience Research Collaborative, and clinicians at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Mount Sinai Medical Center, and Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, India have combined robust technology in molecular-contrast agents and imaging systems to detect precancerous lesions and early cancers in the oral cavity and the esophagus with high sensitivity and specificity. A system to improve oral cancer screening based on this work has recently received FDA approval.

Richards-Kortum’s research has led to 24 patents/patent applications and a number of companies are developing products based on her concepts. She has authored more than 190 peer-reviewed papers and a new textbook, Biomedical Engineering for Global Health, which will be published by Cambridge University Press this year.

In 2008, Richards-Kortum was elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Biomedical Engineering Society, received the Vice President Recognition Award from the IEEE Educational Activities Board, and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. In addition, she served on the inaugural National Advisory Council for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering for the National Institutes of Health from 2002-2007, and has received numerous top honors from the National Science Foundation, the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the American Society for Engineering Education.

Richards-Kortum earned a Bachelor of Science with highest distinction in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln in 1985. In 1990, she received a doctorate in Medical Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and began her career in academia at the University of Texas at Austin.

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