C. Michael Stein, M.D., is the first holder of the Dan May Chair in Medicine.
(photo by Susan Urmy)
Clinical Pharmacology research bolstered by newly endowed chair
C. Michael Stein, M.D., associate director of Clinical Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has been named the first holder of the newly endowed Dan May Chair in Medicine.
“Mike Stein is a world leader in clinical pharmacology, particularly in the therapeutic aspects of vascular disease,” said Jason Morrow, M.D., director of the Division of Clinical Pharmacology. “This chair is recognition of his standing in the fields of medicine and pharmacology.”
Named for the prominent Nashville businessman, civic leader and lifetime member of the Vanderbilt Board of Trust who died in 1982, the Dan May chair is a gift from his late wife, Dorothy Fishel May, their son Joseph “Jack” May and his wife, Lynn Hewes May, of Nashville, and their daughter, Elizabeth “Betsy” May Stern, and her husband, Walter Stern, of Scarsdale, N.Y.
“The department is particularly grateful to wonderful donors among the Stern and May families that enabled this gift,” said Eric Neilson, M.D., chair of the Department of Medicine.
“We couldn't operate with talented faculty if we did not have the tremendous help from those committed to seeing Vanderbilt prosper.”
Stein, a professor of Medicine and Pharmacology who joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 1993, is an expert on the genetic variability of drug responses, inflammation and atherosclerosis.
He is immediate past editor of Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, a leading medical journal, and recently was named editor of a new online journal, Archives of Drug Information, that will report the results of drug studies, as well as routine drug-interaction and other drug-development studies that usually don't make it into the mainline science journals.
To be named holder of the Dan May chair “is a great honor,” Stein said. It “reflects the many excellent mentors, the outstanding collaborators and the rich academic environment at Vanderbilt.”
May, a 1920 graduate of Vanderbilt University, was president of May Hosiery Mill (located on Chestnut Street), a member and president of the Nashville Board of Education, and a trustee of Fisk University.
He helped plan Nashville's metropolitan form of government and served on the first Metro Council.
After his death, his family and friends provided an endowment to the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine that funds the annual Dan May Lectureship in Cardiovascular Medicine, and provides summer research scholarships for medical students.