$3 Million Kenan Gift Leads to Endowed Chair in Translational Medicine 

With philanthropist and business leader Thomas S. Kenan III playing an instrumental part, the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust has given $3 million to the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine to establish an endowed chair in translational medicine. 

“We recognize with enthusiasm that this chair will add to – and build upon – the university’s current strengths in infectious disease, regenerative medicine and rigorous academic work in interdisciplinary methods to understand, treat and prevent human and animal diseases,” representatives of the trust said.

The goal of creating the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Chair in Translational Science Medicine is to advance human and animal health and welfare by applying the most current research techniques to complex medical problems.  

“I’m just so incredibly grateful to Mr. Kenan and the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust for their long-term generosity to NC State,” says Dr. Kate Meurs, dean of the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine. “Mr. Kenan and Mr. Randall B. Terry Jr., another incredibly generous donor to the college, were classmates and friends at the Woodberry Forest School as young men. They have each made significant gifts to the college that helped enhance our missions of education, discovery and service. It is heartwarming to know that their early connection is repeated through philanthropy to veterinary medicine.”

The NC State College of Veterinary Medicine is nationally and internationally known as a leader in comparative and translational medicine, offering excellence in research, service and training that advances animal and human health issues. Meurs describes translational medicine as taking discoveries made at the benchtop in a lab and using them ultimately to treat patients at the clinic bedside.

“Many of the complex medical problems in humans and animals require a basic scientific approach to truly make a major clinical impact in disease diagnosis, treatment and prevention,” Meurs says. “This position will allow us to hire a skilled scientist with benchtop science skills and a passion for using those skills to resolve complex clinical problems.”

The college has chosen a hiring committee to recruit or elevate an internationally known expert in the field of translational medicine for the chair, which will not be put into an organizational chart until the person is hired.

Dr. Joshua Stern, associate dean of research, says he is thrilled with the complete flexibility that the Kenan gift has given the college to create what might be a novel position for any veterinary college nationwide.

“We want a world leader in their area of medicine who is going to propel translational science at the CVM, so we haven’t pigeon-holed this position into any one discipline,” Stern says. “Anybody that’s doing great work out there, we want to talk about adding them to the CVM community. If you’re doing translational science and medicine out in the universe, we want to hear from you about bringing that to NC State to capitalize on our strengths and move forward.”

The NC State College of Veterinary Medicine has three departments – Clinical Sciences, Molecular Biomedical Sciences and Population Health and Pathobiology – and all house faculty members doing translational research.

“This person could be the greatest thing in translational medicine of pig GI disease, and they might decide they want to be in Population Health,” Stern says. “Or they might be the greatest thing in thrombosis and hemostasis, and they want to be in the Department of Clinical Sciences. Or they might be the next big thing in molecular biology as it relates to creating new drugs, and they might be in MBS.”

Meurs says the professor chosen for the role will work with colleagues to build an internationally recognized program focused on developing integrated research methodology that improves medical care, particularly around the college’s existing strengths which include infectious disease, regenerative medicine and cell and neurobiology, among others.

For decades, Kenan, a former director of the North Carolina Veterinary Medical Foundation and a member of the university’s W.J. Peele Lifetime Giving Society, and his family have been supporters of NC State. At the College of Veterinary Medicine, up to six students are selected each year to receive the William R. Kenan Jr. Memorial Scholarship based on financial need and excellent scholarly potential.

“Mr. Kenan is truly visionary for allowing us to have the latitude to select the best possible fit for our institution to move research and translational science forward,” Stern says. “That flexibility is an amazing gift that can propel research in incredible ways.”