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    • J. Crayton Pruitt Foundation

    Dr. Pruitt with his children in 2006 (left to right): Natalie, Crayton Jr. and Helen.

    The J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida is the newest department in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering. Established in 2002, it grew out of a program made possible by a grant from the Whitaker Foundation.

    In 2006 the department received a $10 million donation from Dr. J. Crayton Pruitt and his family foundation. It was matched with funds from the state of Florida Major Gift Trust Fund, yielding a $20 million endowment.

    Pruitt’s gift is among the largest cash gifts received by UF. As a result of the gift, University officials named the department in honor of the Pruitt family, making it the first-ever named department at UF.

    About Dr. J. Crayton Pruitt, Sr.

    Dr. J. Crayton Pruitt Sr. in 2006.

    On an ordinary night in 1995, J. Crayton Pruitt Sr. went to bed thinking he was in perfect health. He awoke the next morning weak and unable to stand. He’d had a heart attack while he slept. Doctors quickly performed coronary bypass surgery, but three days later his heart slipped into ventricular fibrillation. Pruitt was flown by helicopter to Shands Hospital at UF, where a surgeon connected him to a biventricular assist device that would keep him alive while he waited for a donor heart.

    The biventricular assist device is an example of biomedical engineering. Fusing engineering with medicine, it focuses on the search for new materials, techniques and technologies to improve health care. In 1995, the apparatus was the size of a washing machine and sat at the foot of Pruitt’s bed.Today’s assist devices are small enough to be entirely implanted into patients.

    LEFT: Dr. Pruitt (left) is an accomplished cardiothoracic surgeon. He is pictured above (middle) with Dr. Alberto Elizalde at St. Petersburg General Hospital. In the late 1970s, Dr. Pruitt became increasingly dissatisfied with shunts used during surgery to keep blood flowing through the carotid artery. Metal clamps held them in place, which could damage artery walls. They also sometimes scraped into the bloodstream the particles he was trying to remove, putting the patient at risk for a stroke during surgery. So, Dr. Pruitt co-created the Pruitt-Inahara Carotid Shunt, which uses balloons to stay positioned and includes a side arm to divert stray particles. It is now one of the most widely used shunts of its kind.

    Pruitt is an accomplished cardiothoracic surgeon, researcher and inventor. He moved to St. Petersburg in 1963 and soon built a thriving private surgical practice. Pruitt devoted his career to the treatment of stroke. His father suffered a debilitating series of strokes, which motivated Pruitt to vigorously research methods of improving available technology. He pioneered the surgical treatment of carotid artery arteriosclerosis for stroke prevention and is thought to have performed more of these surgeries than any other surgeon in the world.

    Ten days after Pruitt arrived in Gainesville, a woman in the Florida Panhandle suffered a stroke and died. Her heart was donated to Pruitt.

    The experience left him with deep appreciation for biomedical engineering and for UF. In 2000, Pruitt expressed his gratitude through his first donation to the biomedical engineering graduate program at UF’s College of Engineering. Largely because of his $2 million gift, in 2002 Biomedical Engineering became a department. In Dec. 2005, he and his children, Crayton Jr., Helen and Natalie, added to the first gift, bringing the family’s total investment in Biomedical Engineering to $10 million.

    Although he passed away on October 8, 2011, his legacy continues and is formally honored every year during Pruitt Research.

     

     

    UF BME TIMELINE

    College Leadership

    1988-1999
    Beginning in 1988, Dean Winfred Phillips led the College into a new era of expanded research programs and top-quality engineering education.

     

     

     

     

     

    2001-2009
    Pramod Khargonekar served as dean from 2001 until 2009. Under his leadership, the College created and subsequently named the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering, established numerous research collaborations resulting in the creation of centers and institutes, and overhauled its distance-education programs with the launch of UF EDGE.

     

     

     

    2009 –
    Led by Dean Cammy Abernathy since 2009, Gator Engineering is an interdisciplinary, collaborative research powerhouse committed to training the next generation of engineering leaders.

     

     

     

     

     

    BME at UF: Pre-department

    Christopher Batich, Ph.D.
    Professor, Materials Science & Engineering,
    University of Florida

    In the mid-80s, faculty members including Dr. Chris Batich (materials science and engineering) started a course of study in BME.

    A decade later, Dean Win Phillips asked Dr. Batich to start a formal Biomedical Engineering program.

    Dr. Batich organized the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Academic Program Committee (BEGAP)

    The committee included professors in engineering and Drs. Wes Bolch and David Hintenlang (nuclear engineering); Drs. Rich Melker and Hans van Oostrum (anesthesiology).

    The Whitaker Foundation provided a $1M grant (with a $1M match from the state) to help fund the program.

    Anthony Brennan, Ph.D.
    Margaret A. Ross Professor,
    Materials Science & Engineering,
    University of Florida

    In 1997, a graduate curriculum was produced and the first class of 13 students enrolled that fall. Dr. Tony Brennan became the first graduate coordinator in BME and helped the program grow to 75 students.