Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine
Prof. Soker brings over 25 years of expertise in the areas of tissue engineering, stem cells, tissue scaffolds, cell differentiation and bioengineering to CollPlant. He currently serves as Professor of Regenerative Medicine and the Scientific Officer for WFIRM. Prof. Soker is an affiliated Professor of Cancer Biology, Physiology & Pharmacology, Biomedical Engineering and Surgical Sciences at the Wake Forest School of Medicine.
Prof. Soker received his Ph.D. from the Technion-Israel Institute for Technology and was a postdoctoral trainee in the Department of Surgical Research at the Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Working with Michael Klagsbrum and the late Judah Folkman, Prof. Soker’s research focused on vascular biology, with emphasis on angiogenic growth factors and their receptors. Prof. Soker joined the Laboratory for Tissue Engineering and Cellular Therapies, under the leadership of Anthony Atala, and was promoted to Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. In 2004, Prof. Soker joined the Wake Forest School of Medicine at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina to launch WFIRM. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2004 and has been a tenured professor since 2010. Prof. Soker has developed programs in neo-vascularization of bioengineered tissues, stem cell from different sources for tissue engineering in vitro and in vivo and tissue-derived extracellular matrices as scaffolds for whole organ bioengineering. Prof. Soker had published this technology for the engineering of organs and tissues including liver, kidney, pancreas, intestine, cornea and more.
Prof. Soker has authored more than 160 scientific publications and reviews and has contributed chapters to numerous books. Over the course of his distinguished career, he has been the recipient of many academic awards, and has received research grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense, as well as numerous foundations and industry. Prof. Soker is a frequent and highly sought-after speaker at scientific meetings and conferences.