May 24, 2023

Wilbur Lam named Associate Dean of Innovation

Dear SOM leaders:

I am pleased to announce that Wilbur Lam, MD, PhD, has accepted the role of Associate Dean of Innovation for Emory School of Medicine. In this role, Dr. Lam will lead establishment of the Innovation Center at the newly constructed Health Science Research Building II (HSRB-II). He will also work closely with leaders in SOM research to optimize alignment of innovation projects and initiatives across the school and with our collaborating institutions.

Dr. Lam is the W. Paul Bowers Research Chair and Professor of Pediatrics and Biomedical Engineering at Emory and Georgia Tech and a clinical pediatric hematologist/oncologist at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Dr. Lam is also Chief Innovation Officer of the Pediatric Technology Center at Children’s and principal investigator of the NIH-funded Atlanta Center for Microsystems Engineered Point-of-Care Technologies, which is part of the NIH’s Point-of-Care Technologies Research Network and currently serves as the Test Verification Core of the NIH RADx initiative for COVID-19 diagnostic testing.

His laboratory’s overall research interests involve developing micro/nanosystems and microfluidic technologies to advance biomedical research with a focus on the biophysics of hematologic processes and diseases. Accordingly, Dr. Lam takes a multidisciplinary approach spanning medicine, cellular biology, physics, chemistry, and engineering to develop new microsystems-based tools to answer questions in hematology that are technologically infeasible with current methods.

The Lam Lab is also dedicated to translating their technologies as novel “cheap tech” solutions to enable and empower pediatric patients to monitor their own conditions more easily at home and in the global health and rural settings. Lam has co-founded 3 point-of-care/home-based diagnostics companies borne out of his lab’s research, one of which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson. Another obtained FDA clearance for one of its point-of-care diagnostic tests.

Dr. Lam’s inspiring vision for innovation in the School of Medicine, combined with his thorough understanding of the day-to-day challenges our faculty face in advancing biomedical innovation efforts, make him uniquely well positioned for this role. I look forward to seeing the opportunities and outcomes of his expanded leadership in this area. Please join me in congratulating Dr. Lam.

Carlos

Carlos del Rio, MD

Interim Dean, Emory University School of Medicine

Interim Chief Academic Officer, Emory Healthcare

Leon L. Haley, Jr. MD Distinguished Professor of Medicine

Division of Infectious Diseases, Emory University School of Medicine

The Leader Update goes to Department Chairs, Department Administrators, Executive Associate Deans and other School of Medicine leaders. We encourage you to share the information in this email with your teams and departments.