Profiles of current holders of endowed chairs and professorships at The Ohio State University Medical Center and insight into the donors and namesakes of these prestigious positions.
John Byrd, MD
The D. Warren Brown Designated Chair in Leukemia Research
Dr. John Byrd is the interim director of the Division of Hematology and associate director for Translational Research at the OSUCCC-James. He is a professor of Medicine, Medicinal Chemistry and Veterinary Biosciences. Dr. Byrd’s research accomplishments center on therapies for chronic lymphocytic leukemia and related leukemias and lymphomas. He has been a faculty member of the Clinical Research Training Institute of the American Society of Hematology and is a founding member of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Data Safety and Monitoring Committee. Dr. Byrd is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Henry Kunkel Society for his research accomplishments.
Namesake:Following his graduation from Miami University in 1961, D. Warren Brown joined his family’s Marion, Ohio, business, Wyandot, Inc. Brown valued hard work, family and community and held leadership positions in many organizations over the years to improve his community. A year before he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 1997, he created the Warren Brown Family Foundation.
Sokolov, MD
The George T. Harding III, MD, Endowed Chair in Psychiatry
Dr. Howard Sokolov is a nationally recognized expert in forensic psychiatry and psychoanalysis. He is the director of Psychotherapy Education in the Department of Psychiatry at Ohio State, working with medical students, residents and faculty. Dr. Sokolov received his medical degree from the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. He completed an internship and residency at the University of Cincinnati and finished his psychoanalytic training at the Cincinnati Psychoanalytic Institute. Dr. Sokolov is a former commissioner of Mental Health and Forensic Services at the Ohio Department of Mental Health, former medical director of Harding Hospital and a past president of the Ohio Psychiatric Physicians Association.
Namesake: To honor the memory and career of the late George T. Harding III, MD, clinical professor emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and retired medical director of Harding Hospital, family and friends joined to create the Harding Chair in Psychiatry. The chair supports the professional activities of a psychiatrist who engages in comprehensive psychiatric treatment, as did Harding.
Miguel Villalona-Calero, MD
The Dorothy M. Davis Chair in Cancer Research
Dr. Miguel Villalona-Calero is an internationally recognized expert in experimental therapeutics and lung cancer. He directs Ohio State’s Solid Tumor Experimental Therapeutics program. He also is director of the new Division of Medical Oncology, which will be instrumental in the growth of the cancer program at Ohio State. He is a National Cancer Institute-funded scholar and a member of its Investigational Drug Steering Committee. He has also been involved in several significant national scientific committees for the American Society for Clinical Oncology, the American Association for Cancer Research and the National Cancer Institute.
Namesake: Dorothy and William Davis were lifelong supporters of The Ohio State University. In 1987, Dorothy established The Dorothy M. Davis Chair in Cancer Research to support a scientist with significant achievements in cancer research at Ohio State’s Comprehensive Cancer Center – James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute. Davis was vitally interested in the future of the University, medical research and higher education.
This page was compiled by Karen Anslinger, Kathleen Dolan and Latina Duffy.