Robert Lefkowitz, M.D., Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Duke University Medical Center, was among top American scientists honored at the White House today as they received the National Medal of Science from President Bush.
During a morning ceremony in the East Room, the President said Thomas Jefferson reportedly used the room "as a place to lay out his fossils."
"Three hundred fossils and bones were catalogued right here in the East Room, including a tusk of nearly 10 feet -- Barney has been looking for that tusk for a long time," Bush said.
The awardees were not invited to speak, but Bush compared them to Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Graham Bell. "You have inspired a wave of innovation and earned the appreciation of your country," he said.
The Lefkowitz citation, read by a military aide, said: "For his discovery of the seven transmembrane receptors, deemed the largest, most versatile, and most therapeutically accessible receptor signaling system, and for describing the general mechanism of their regulation, influencing all fields of medical practice."
Read our recent In Focus interview with Lefkowitz
View a news release, photo and video of the awards ceremony from the White House