Health Care 2023: MICHAEL J. FRIEDLANDER

Friedlander is among the top leaders in Virginia focused on growing the biomedical research industry.

Since he founded the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion a decade ago, the institute has doubled its lab facilities in Roanoke and expanded to new laboratories on the Children’s National Research & Innovation Campus in Washington, D.C. Today, the institute has more than 400 employees and trainees.

Friedlander, who holds a doctorate in physiology and biophysics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, oversees $140 million in funded research projects. He also leads academic programs for medical, doctoral, graduate and undergraduate students at Virginia Tech.

As senior dean for research at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, Friedlander’s own work has focused on studying brain processes that mediate vision, developmental plasticity and traumatic brain injury. He is also a professor in Tech’s colleges of science and engineering.

In 2019, Friedlander was made a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society. In 2016, he was named a distinguished scientist by the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine. He served as president for the society from 2011 to 2013.