WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Shay Soker, Ph.D., an associate professor of regenerative medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, has been elected president of North Carolina Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (NCTERM). NCTERM promotes basic research, commercial development, and education in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine in North Carolina.
The goals for NCTERM are to stimulate academic and corporate interest in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine in North Carolina as well as interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaborations in the field. NCTERM’s activities include an annual meeting with participants from different universities and academic institutions from North Carolina. Soker will organize and chair the next annual meeting in November 2009 at Piedmont Triad Research Park.
The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine works to engineer organs and tissues in the laboratory with the goal of helping to solve the shortage of organs available for transplantation. Soker focuses on developing new approaches to enhance the growth of blood vessels and nerves into engineered or regenerated tissue and also oversees research on new types of stem cells, including those that are found in the fluid that surrounds the developing fetus.
Soker received his bachelor’s degree in agriculture and his master’s degree in microbiology and molecular genetics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his doctoral degree in biology from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Soker did his postgraduate training with Dr. Judah Folkman at Boston’s Children’s Hospital before joining the Tissue Engineering laboratory of Anthony Atala, M.D., In 2004 Soker moved with Atala to Wake Forest University School of Medicine to initiate the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
###
Media Contacts: Karen Richardson, krchrdsn@wfubmc.edu, 336-716-4453, or Bonnie Davis, bdavis@wfubmc.edu at 336-716-4587.
About the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine
The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (www.wfirm.org) is an established center dedicated to the discovery, development and clinical translation of regenerative medicine technologies by leading faculty. The institute has used biomaterials alone, cell therapies, and engineered tissues and organs for the treatment of patients with injury or disease. The Institute is based at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (www.wfubmc.edu), an academic health system comprised of North Carolina Baptist Hospital, Wake Forest University Health Sciences, which operates the university’s School of Medicine, and Wake Forest University Physicians. The system is consistently ranked as one of “America’s Best Hospitals” by U.S. News & World Report.
Media Relations
: news@wakehealth.edu, 336-713-4587