Recent News

Congratulations to Charles E. Wood, DVM PhD, of the Section on Comparative Medicine. Dr. Wood will receive the first New Investigator Award from the Women's Health Center of Excellence (WHCOE).

The WHCOE Faculty Research Awards in Women's Health are intended to reward and encourage the continued pursuit of excellence in women's health research at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Research Update Seminar

View the current schedule and list of presenters for the Research Update Seminar.

A Brief History

Dr. Thomas Clarkson joined the Bowman Gray School of Medicine's Experimental Medicine Staff in 1959. In the same year, he was awarded an NIH training grant (which is still funded) to train veterinarians in Laboratory Animal Medicine.

Among Dr. Clarkson's early responsibilities was the Vivarium, which provided care and housing for research animals throughout the institution; it later became the Animal Resources Program and is now directed by Dr. Jan Wagner. In the 1960s, the Friedberg Campus, a 110-acre site in Davidson County, was acquired to accommodate the growing population of research animals and the researchers who studied them. That campus is now also home to the the WFU Primate Center, under the direction of Dr. Jay Kaplan.

In the early 1970s, Dr. Clarkson was appointed Chair of the newly-formed Department of Comparative Medicine. With Dr. Hugh Lofland of the Pathology Department, he shared directorship of the new NIH-funded Specialized Center of Research (SCOR), which incorporated multidisciplinary research activities in atherosclerosis.

Collaborative research efforts between the 2 departments continue today, and in 1997, they merged into 1 department, with Dr. Richard St. Clair as head of the new Section on Comparative Medicine and Dr. Jerry Garvin as Pathology Department Chair. Two additional research sections, Lipid Sciences and Tumor Biology, were eventually formed. In addition to its research activities, Comparative Medicine is also the home of Veterinary Pathology and Laboratory & Animal Medicine.