Robert H. Pudenz Award

Our commitment to collaboration

The development of cutting-edge medical technology, as well as the improvement of existing products, is a collaborative process between medical device companies, physicians, and medical institutions. Medtronic is committed to continuing collaboration with physicians and their institutions in the form of donations of money and other types of sponsorships, such as programs designed to educate and train physicians to allow them and their institutions to bring life-saving and life-enhancing therapies to patients worldwide.

The Pudenz Award is a research grant awarded to the academic or clinical institution with which the nominee is affiliated, demonstrating a commitment to advancing the science of the field of CSF physiology and hydrocephalus through research published in peer-reviewed journals. The recipient of the award is chosen by an independent committee based on the extensive nature of the research work conducted by the recipient.

The award has been given since 1988 in honor of Robert H. Pudenz, one of the founders of the PS Medical Corporation (now Medtronic). He was a recognized pioneer in the field of pediatric neurosurgery. His area of research was in cerebrospinal fluid physiology and shunt technology for the treatment of hydrocephalus.

2025 award recipient

Maiken Nedergaard MD DMSc is Professor in the Department of Neurology and the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Rochester (New York), and is also Professor of Glial Cell Biology at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark). Her early research concerned the role of gap junctions in astrocyte physiology and communication, including calcium signaling during brain ischemia.  In 2012, her laboratory shifted focus to study movement of solutes in the extracellular compartment of the brain. In that work (“A paravascular pathway facilitates CSF flow through the brain parenchyma and the clearance of interstitial solutes, including amyloid β), she and coauthors proposed the term “glymphatic”, a merger of the words glial and lymphatic. Although fluid flow through the brain’s extracellular and paravascular compartments had been recognized for decades, that publication energized the research area; it had been cited >5500 times by 2025. Fluid flow as a means of intercellular communication, metabolic waste disposal, and possibly drug delivery has become conceptually important to all neurological disorders, including hydrocephalus and cerebrospinal fluid physiology. Since 2012, Dr. Nedergaard herself has directly contributed to almost 200 publications that concern brain fluids. It is for this work that the Selection Committee has nominated Dr. Nedergaard for the 2025 Pudenz Award.

Selection Committee (2015–current)

• Marion L. (Jack) Walker, MD
• James P. (Pat) McAllister II, PhD
• Marc R. Del Bigio, MD, PhD
• Conrad E. Johanson, PhD
• John D. Pickard, MD, PhD