Tech-Carilion Research Names Director

Michael J. Friedlander (right) of the Baylor College of Medicine has been named founding executive director of the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute in Roanoke, effective June 1.

Friedlander will have responsibility for development of a research strategy, recruitment of research teams, development of collaborative translational research programs, and partnership of the institute with the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, existing Virginia Tech research programs, Carilion Clinic, and other research partners, says Virginia Tech senior VP and provost Mark McNamee.

Friedlander has a long and varied medical background and he has an international reputation for research in the area of neuroscience, including synaptic plasticity, brain development and traumatic brain injury. He has received more than 40 funded projects to support his research activities over the past several decades and serves on the editorial boards of four different scientific journals.

Says Friedlander, “The Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute offers an ideal environment to develop one of the nation’s premiere research initiatives to address some of the major health problems in Virginia and the United States. This initiative represents a unique collaboration between a leading research university and premiere healthcare system that, together, will build broad multi- and interdisciplinary biomedical and bio-behavioral research programs.”