George J ChristGeorge J. Christ is Professor of Regenerative Medicine and Translational Science and Head of the Program in Cell, Tissue and Organ Physiology at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. He is an Affiliate Faculty in the Molecular Medicineand Molecular Genetics Programs, as well as the Virginia Tech/Wake Forest School for Biomedical Engineering and Sciences. He also holds appointments in the Departments of Urology and Physiology and Pharmacology and the Sticht Center for Aging. He is the former Director and founder of the Institute for Smooth Muscle Biology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr Christ is an internationally recognized expert in muscle physiology. He is the past Chairman of the Division of Systems and Integrative Pharmacology of the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) and past President of the North Carolina Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Society. He currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Division for Integrative Systems, Translational and Clinical Pharmacology of ASPET. He is on the editorial board of five journals and has authored more than 200 scientific publications. Dr Christ has served on both national and international committees related to his expertise, and has also served on NIH study sections in the NIDDK, NICHD, NCRR and NHLBI. He has chaired working groups for both the NIH and the World Health Organization. Dr Christ is a co-inventor on more than 24 patents (national and international), which are either issued or pending, related to gene therapy for the treatment of human smooth muscle disorders and tissue engineering technologies. He is a co-founder and directing member of Ion Channel Innovations, LLC, a development stage biotechnology company pioneering the use of gene therapy for the treatment of human smooth muscle disorders. In addition, he is a co-founder and board member of Creative Bioreactor Design, Inc., another early stage biotechnology company in Read More Read Less