WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Marking a substantial change in the organizational structure of the Wake Forest University Translational Science Institute (TSI), Charles E. “Cash” McCall, M.D., has been appointed director as well as professor of translational science at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. This is the first primary appointment in the TSI. Stephen B. Kritchevsky, Ph.D., will join McCall as deputy director.
The reorganization will better serve the mission of the TSI, which was founded in March 2007 to generate and “translate” biomedical science and knowledge into improved health care and health. Under its new leadership structure, the TSI will play a major role in supporting strategic initiatives at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Other alterations in structure and function of the TSI will be announced at a later date.
“The TSI enables an emerging cultural change at Wake Forest Baptist, which seeks to convert discoveries in diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease into improved health in our region and nation,” said McCall. “As such, the mission and vision of both the TSI and the medical center are closely aligned.”
McCall continues as professor of internal medicine/molecular medicine. He relinquishes his title of deputy associate dean for research.
Kritchevsky will hold a shared primary appointment as professor of translational science and professor of internal medicine. He will continue in his roles as director of the J. Paul Sticht Center on Aging and the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center, which is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“Under the leadership of Drs. McCall and Kritchevsky, the TSI will continue to be the leading vehicle to increase translational research collaboration at the medical center,” said William B. Applegate, M.D., president of Wake Forest University Health Sciences and dean of the medical school.
McCall trained at the Bowman Gray School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, the Royal Postgraduate School of Medicine in London and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. He has received from the medical school the Established Investigator Award in Clinical Research, the Distinguished Faculty Alumnus Award and the Distinguished Service Award.
McCall was director of the General Clinical Research Center (GCRC), funded by the NIH, from its inception in 1992 until 2008. In 2001, he founded within the Department of Internal Medicine a new Section on Molecular Medicine, which epitomizes the clinical and translational science concept.
McCall is the author of more than 170 original research publications. He has received 38 years of uninterrupted NIH funding and is currently principal investigator on two NIH grants to support further epigenetic studies in acute inflammation. He is internationally recognized for his discoveries in severe systemic inflammation associated with sepsis and trauma.
Kritchevsky received his Ph.D. and M.S.P.H. in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina School of Public Health. He is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and a member of the American Geriatrics Society, the Council on Epidemiology of the American Heart Association, the American Society for Nutritional Sciences and the editorial board of the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences.
Before coming to Wake Forest, Kritchevsky was a professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Tennessee in Memphis. He is the author of 194 book chapters and journal articles and 22 other publications. Currently, he is the principal investigator of two grants funded by the NIH and the National Institute on Aging: one to determine the association between Vitamin D status and falls, fractures and function in community-dwelling older adults and the other to determine the long-term effects of weight loss on cognitive and physical function in older persons with diabetes.
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