MENDEL MEDAL
HONORING PIONEERS IN THE SCIENCES
The Villanova University Mendel Medal was established and awarded to outstanding scientists who have done much by their painstaking work to advance the cause of science, and, by their lives and their standing before the world as scientists, have demonstrated that between true science and true religion there is no intrinsic conflict.
The Mendel Medal, in honor of Gregor Johann Mendel Abbot of the Augustinian Monastery, Brünn, Austria, (now Brno, the Czech Republic), who discovered the celebrated laws of heredity which now bear his name, was established in 1928 by the Board of Trustees of Villanova University to recognize scientific accomplishment and religious conviction. The Mendel Medal was first awarded in 1929 and given annually until 1943. Between 1946 and 1968, the Mendel Medal was awarded eight times. After a hiatus of twenty-five years, it was reestablished in 1992 as part of the Villanova University's Sesquicentennial Celebrations.
Past recipients have included Nobel Laureates, outstanding medical researchers, pioneers in physics, astrophysics and chemistry, and noted scientist-theologians.
CURRENT RECIPIENT
Peter Hotez MD, PhD, FAAP, FASTMH
Peter Hotez MD, PhD, FAAP, FASTMH, is Pediatrician-Scientist and Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, where he is also the Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital Endowed Chair in Tropical Pediatrics. He is also co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. Prof. Hotez has devoted his life to the development of new vaccines for neglected diseases of poverty, including vaccines for human hookworm infection and schistosomiasis in clinical trials and a new Chagas disease vaccine. During the pandemic, he co-led the development of a low-cost and patent free Covid vaccine technology that led to the production and delivery of 100 million doses Corbevax and IndoVac in India and Indonesia, respectively.
This provided proof-of-concept that it's possible to develop and deliver low-cost vaccines at scale, bypassing multinational pharma companies. For this work he was co-nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. In addition, Prof. Hotez leads efforts to combat rising antivaccine activism in his role as both a vaccine scientist and parent of an adult daughter with autism. He is the author of five single-authored books including, "Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism," "Preventing the Next Pandemic," and the forthcoming "Deadly of Anti-Science" each published by Johns Hopkins University Press. He is also the author of more than 690 scientific publications indexed on PubMed, and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was recognized by the AMA with their Scientific Achievement Award and the AAAS with their Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award, in addition to recognition by the AAMC, ASTMH, among many others.
Prof. Hotez obtained his MD-PhD at Weill Cornell Medical College and Rockefeller University, residency and fellowship training at Mass General Hospital and Yale Univ School of Medicine, and he holds honorary doctoral (DSc) degrees from CUNY, Roanoke College, and Elmezzi Graduate School of Molecular Medicine of Northwell Health. During the pandemic, he appeared regularly on CNN, MSNBC, BBC, NPR, PBS NewsHour and other networks communicating to the nation and was recognized for this by the American Medical Writers Association and other organizations.