Ken is the CTTC Medical Director.
Ken Holroyd, MD, MBA, joined Vanderbilt University in 2005. He currently serves as the Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization's Medical Director, the lead of the Brock Family Center for Applied Innovation, and also holds appointments as Vice President for Technology Transfer at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and Medicine.
We caught up with Ken to learn more about his contributions in the Vanderbilt innovation system.
What inspired you to join VU and VUMC?
I was inspired to see university research and companies work more closely together and more successfully. This desire resulted from eight years working as an executive in the biopharmaceutical industry, combined with my broad clinical medical training in internal medicine, pulmonary medicine, and anesthesiology, with scientific and clinical research and development experience in a variety of therapeutic areas. The desire has not waned during my twenty years at Vanderbilt.
What is the most rewarding aspect of your role?
The most rewarding aspect is helping faculty and their inventions advance to licensing, including to start up companies.
Can you share a milestone or story from your days at CTTC that still resonates today?
Eleven years ago, being asked to start the Medical Device Regulatory Affairs Program, and seeing the approval of the first human study of the flexible magnetic colonoscope nine years later.
Can you share about the ways you are engaged at Vanderbilt?
I am the Medical Director of CTTC, Director of the Brock Family Center for Applied Innovation which mostly assists faculty start up companies in strong cooperation with CTTC. I am involved with translational method development and drug repurposing with Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research and the NIH sponsored Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA), as a clinical anesthesiologist every Friday and some on the weekend, as a VUMC appointed Board Member for Cumberland Emerging Technologies, the Human Immunome Project, and the Middle Tennessee School of Anesthesia, and a faculty member in Anesthesiology with a secondary appointment in the Department of Medicine (Clinical Pharmacology).
What do you do for fun?
Family, sports, all things automobiles, computer and over the board chess.
What is a fun fact about you?
I lived in Nashville in 1958-59 from age six to eighteen months in a rental duplex house about a mile from Lipscomb University, and returned in 2005.
About the Brock Family Center for Applied Innovation
In 2023, John F. Brock III, his wife, Mary, and their three adult children established the Brock Family Center for Applied Innovation at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The center seeks to accelerate translation of Vanderbilt discoveries and know-how into the public domain through commercialization and industry partnerships.
Interested in Getting Involved? Save the Date: Sunday September 28 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 2025 Healthcare Artificial Intelligence Sessions by the Brock Center. Learn More.