2016 Innovator of the Year

Dr. Anthony Atala, leader of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), has been named 2016 Innovator of the Year by R&D Magazine. He also recently received a Smithsonian Magazine American Ingenuity Award in life sciences for his efforts to construct living organs using 3-D printing technology.

In the Richard H. Dean Biomedical Research Building on the southern end of Wake Forest Innovation Quarter in Winston-Salem, N.C., Atala and his team of researchers are creating living human tissues and organs.

This photo shows a completed ear and jaw bone structures printed with the Integrated Tissue-Organ Printing System. (Credit: Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine)

Wake Forest Innovation Quarter, home to Wake Forest University’s new academic programs in the biomedical sciences will literally and figuratively bring medical and liberal arts education together. Known as Wake Downtown, the new satellite campus opens next month in one of the nation’s fastest growing innovation parks.

“The vision for the Innovation Quarter includes creating a robust knowledge community,” said Wake Forest Innovation Quarter President Eric Tomlinson. “The addition of progressive undergraduate programs from Wake Forest University alongside the various scientific and clinical graduate programs already here very much contributes to that vision, and we are excited to partner with the University in this endeavor.”

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