Hyeong-Reh C. Kim, Ph.D., professor of Pathology and Oncology, has been appointed vice dean of Research for the Wayne State University (WSU) School of Medicine.
Dr. Kim, who is a member of the Tumor Biology and Microenvironment Research Program at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, is a nationally respected scientist, educator and institutional leader with more than three decades of distinguished service to WSU.
“Dr. Kim brings an exceptional combination of scientific excellence, strategic vision and collaborative leadership that has already helped reshape the School of Medicine’s research culture,” said School of Medicine Dean Wael Sakr, M.D., who announced the appointment March 5. “As vice dean of Research, she will provide visionary leadership to expand our research portfolio, support high-impact and team-science initiatives, strengthen mentorship and retention of faculty and trainees, and advance translational research that bridges basic science, clinical and community-engaged research. Enhancing interdisciplinary integration across WSU schools and colleges' collaborations figures centrally in Dr. Kim’s research vision.”
Dr. Kim joined the WSU faculty in 1993 after earning a bachelor’s degree from Seoul National University in South Korea, a doctoral degree from Northwestern University and completing post-doctoral training at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. She has led a highly impactful research program continuously supported by federal research funding for more than three decades, resulting in several seminal discoveries in cancer biology. She is widely published, has received multiple institutional awards for excellence in research and teaching, has served extensively on NIH and Department of Defense grant review panels, and serves on the editorial boards of several leading scientific journals.
“Her work exemplifies translational innovation, bridging fundamental discovery to therapeutic impact. Dr. Kim is widely recognized for her principled leadership and unwavering commitment to faculty and trainee success,” Dean Sakr said. “I am confident that her leadership will elevate our research mission, strengthen our national profile and ensure that our discoveries translate into meaningful health impact.”
Dean Sakr noted that Dr. Kim played a central role in strengthening and transforming the School of Medicine’s research enterprise, moving quickly to establish the School’s Thematic Research Groups and to launch the Dean’s Thematic Research Initiatives and Pilot Funding Program, engaging more than 150 faculty members and accelerating cross-disciplinary collaboration.
That drive coincided with the launching of the Health Sciences Research Building on the School of Medicine campus. Dr. Kim chairs a faculty committee working with faculty, architects, and Facilities Planning to help shape the research space design in alignment with thematic research priorities and faculty needs, developing a strategic platform to operationalize the vision for collaborative and interdisciplinary research and reorganizing discovery around scientific challenges rather than traditional departmental silos.
Dr. Kim, along with Dean Sakr, secured a recent $8 million National Institutes of Health Research Facilities Construction Grant to establish the Advanced Technology Center (ATC) on the first floor of the Health Sciences Research Building. The highly competitive and prestigious award will significantly strengthen biomedical research infrastructure and catalyze interdisciplinary collaboration.
The ATC, Dean Sakr said, represents a transformative investment for enhancing research capacity, visibility and competitiveness, and positions WSU as a leader in biomedical research infrastructure in Michigan and beyond.
"Dr. Kim’s appointment marks an important step forward for the School of Medicine as we embrace new possibilities for collaboration across campus," said Bernard J. Costello, M.D., D.M.D., WSU senior vice president for Health Affairs. “Her leadership is especially valuable in light of a new Health Sciences Research Building that is designed to bring people together and spark the collaborative research that moves ideas forward.”
Boris Pasche, M.D., Ph.D., FACP, CEO and president of Karmanos and chair of the Department of Oncology at WSU School of Medicine, congratulated Dr. Kim on LinkedIn, saying in part, “Dr. Kim is a distinguished member of the Tumor Biology and Microenvironment (TBM) Program at Karmanos Cancer Institute, where she leads highly innovative research focused on novel therapeutic strategies targeting the androgen receptor (AR) in prostate cancer.”
Originally published at Today@Wayne.