February 10, 2021

Charles Kwok Fai Chan, PhD, a member of the institute and an assistant professor in the Department of Surgery, has been named the DiGenova Endowed Faculty Scholar by the Stanford School of Medicine. 

The funding accompanying the title comes financial support provided by a gift from Anthony DiGenova, who was profiled in a recent article:

Anthony (or Tony, as he preferred to be called) DiGenova grew up in a large family in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. The son of a barber who owned a shop where the Bank of America Center now towers, Tony dreamed of going to Stanford University. Although he did not attend, he loved Stanford football and always rooted for the Cardinal when they played the Big Game. As a young man, Tony had the foresight to invest whatever money he had in real estate. Through the years he bought apartment buildings in San Francisco, Alameda, Oakland, and Sacramento. When he passed away in 2017 at the age of 94, he left part of his estate to Stanford Athletics, but the largest distribution of the trust that he built up over his lifetime went to stem cell research at Stanford.

Chan was effusive in his praise in response to the honor.  " My team and I are incredibly grateful for Mr. Anthony DiGenova's visionary generosity and to the Trustee's of the DiGenova Foundation for this award,” he said. “Their gift will make it possible for our group to build on our recent breakthroughs in stem cell-mediated cartilage regeneration and bring the technology to the clinic as soon as possible. We are also immensely grateful to our colleagues in the Stem Cell Institute, the Department of Surgery, the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, and the School of Medicine for their kindness and steadfast support over the years!"