Accepting nominations for national innovators for the 2024 awardee until March 31, 2024.

Honoring Leaders of Healthcare Innovation

The BioMedSA Award for Innovation in Healthcare and Bioscience celebrates local and national innovators in the healthcare and bioscience industry, including patient care, education, research and development, leadership, public policy and medical technology.

Event Details

Thurs, September 7, 2023

5:30 – 7:00pm
Networking & VIP Session

7:00 – 8:00pm
Dinner & Award Presentation

8:00 – 9:00pm
Networking

Members: Sold out
Non-Members: Sold out
Military: Sold out

The Vista at Valero
1 Valero Way
San Antonio, TX 78249

Get directions

Business attire requested

2023 BioMedSA Award Honorees

2023 BioMedSA Award for Innovation in Healthcare and Bioscience

Dr. Sunil K. Ahuja

Sunil K. Ahuja, MD, serves as a Professor and Director of the Center for Personalized Medicine at the South Texas Veterans Health Care System. He serves as a professor of medicine; microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics; and biochemistry and structural biology at UT Health San Antonio. He also serves as Director of Research Enhancement Programs and as the President’s Council/Dielmann Chair of Excellence in Medical Research.

As a renowned researcher in immune system studies in aging, allergy/asthma and serious infectious diseases (including COVID-19), Dr. Ahuja has secured federal and foundation grants totaling approximately $45 million since 1996. Leaders in his field have recognized his work, including Dr. Anthony Fauci with whom Dr. Ahuja worked while serving at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Dr. Ahuja is highly recognized for his research work on HIV/AIDS. At NIH, he was a key research team member discovering the cellular molecule that was shown to be used by the HIV-1 virus to enter white blood cells. His team’s work was pivotal in defining the genetic basis for why individuals vary in their susceptibility to HIV/AIDS. Most recently, he pioneered the concept of immune resilience: a process by which some persons resist developing serious infections and live longer lives. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Ahuja and his group translated the concept of immune resilience to improving outcomes in treating veterans with COVID-19 infections.

In a recommendation letter, Dr. Fauci wrote of Dr. Ahuja in 2005, “Our excellent training program at NIH has trained some of the top leaders in infectious disease in this country. Sunil was among our very best clinicians and our very best research fellows. I have watched over 100 NIAID fellows develop their careers after leaving here, and would place Dr. Ahuja in the top half-dozen in terms of scientific stature.”

2023 BioMedSA Lifetime Achievement Award

Dr. William L. Henrich

William L. Henrich, MD, MACP, has served as the President of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) since 2009. He is one of the longest serving presidents in The University of Texas System. Under Dr. Henrich’s leadership, he has positioned UT Health San Antonio as a chief catalyst in San Antonio’s burgeoning healthcare and bioscience industry, rising in prominence among premier academic medical centers in the United States. 

A dynamic and rapidly expanding health science center, UT Health San Antonio comprises six professional schools, including medicine, nursing, dentistry, health professions, biomedical sciences and the new UT School of Public Health San Antonio. Dr. Henrich has advanced the missions of education, clinical care, biomedical research and community service with an institutional budget of more than $1.3 billion, a workforce of 8,000 and a research portfolio of approximately $400 million. 

During his career, Dr. Henrich has served as a Professor of Medicine at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, as a Professor and Chair of Medicine at the Medical College of Ohio, and as the Theodore Woodward Professor and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. He became the Dean of the School of Medicine and Vice President for Medical Affairs at UT Health San Antonio in 2006 prior to being selected as its president in 2009. He is the inaugural holder of the John P. Howe III, MD, Distinguished Chair in Health Policy.

Dr. Henrich is the author of more than 350 original articles and chapters. He is the founding editor of the popular dialysis textbook “Henrich’s Principles and Practice of Dialysis.” He is also an elected member of several prominent research societies, including serving as President of the American Society of Nephrology.

2023 Sponsors

Presenting Sponsors

uthealth
San Antonio Medical Foundation logo

Diamond Sponsors

MaysFamilyFoundationLogo

Platinum Sponsors

unnamed-1

Gold Sponsor

logo-SwRI Logo Blue Pantone 2728
logo-biobridge global
logo-Methodist Healthcare Ministries
logo-university health
uts-logo-color-centered

Silver Sponsors

Mission Pharmacal

WellMed

Bronze Sponsors

Alamo Colleges District

BDO

Health Cell

Henry M. Jackson Foundation

Methodist Healthcare

Progenerative Medical

San Antonio Chamber of Commerce

SpawGlass

Texas Research & Technology Foundation

Recipients

  • 2023 – Sunil Ahuja, M.D., infectious disease and immune system researcher
  • 2021/2 – Robert Ward, Ph.D., serial biomaterials inventor and entrepreneur
  • 2020 – Rena Bizios, Ph.D., research in cell-material interactions and biomedical engineering pioneer
  • 2019 – Stephen Badylak, D.V.M., Ph.D., M.D., discovered the use of the extracellular matrix 
  • 2018 – Alan Peterson, Ph.D., ABPP, the nation’s foremost research leader in combat-related PTSD 
  • 2017 – Leonard Pinchuk, Ph.D., D.Sc. prolific biomaterials scientist and inventor  
  • 2016 – George E. Peoples, Jr., M.D., FACS, cancer immunotherapy pioneer   
  • 2015 – W.E. (William Esco) Moerner, Ph.D., Nobel Prize-winning chemist 
  • 2014 – Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D., nationally-renowned pediatric transplant surgeon
  • 2013 – Robert S. Langer, Sc.D., world-renowned engineer, inventor and entrepreneur in tissue engineering and biomaterials
  • 2012 – Larry Miller, M.D., pioneer of  leading intraosseous vascular access technology
  • 2011 – Leroy Hood, M.D., Ph.D., biologist and inventor of numerous scientific instruments
  • 2010 – C. Mauli Agrawal, Ph.D., founded biomedical engineering degree program at UTSA
  • 2009 – Dean Kamen, internationally acclaimed inventor and founder of DEKA and FIRST
  • 2008 – Robert Campbell, M.D., Melvin Smith, M.D., and Kaye Wilkins, M.D., pediatric orthopedic inventors
  • 2007 – Karen Davis, Ph.D., children’s health assessment program  
  • 2006 – Julio Palmaz, M.D., inventor of the first commercially successful intravascular stent

Lifetime Achievement Award

  • 2023 – William Henrich, M.D., medical, institutional and community leadership 
  • 2018 – Basil A. Pruitt, Jr. M.D., one of the founding fathers of modern trauma and burn medicine 

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