WiCell Research Institute, a private, non-profit supporting organization of UW-Madison stem-cell researchers, named its executive director Wednesday.

Erik Forsberg, who currently has a partial faculty appointment in the university’s surgery department, will become the first full-time executive director of WiCell.

“Over the past six months, we conducted an international search for an executive director for WiCell, and are extremely fortunate to have found the best candidate right here in Madison,” Carl Gulbrandsen, president of the research institute, said in a statement.

“Erik brings to WiCell impressive academic credentials, an innovative scientific background and hands-on commercial and management experience. These strengths, combined with his in-depth knowledge of UW-Madison and the international scientific community, make him an exceptional leader for WiCell.”

Janet Kelly, communications director for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, said Gulbrandsen served as WiCell’s part-time executive director while also serving as the managing director of WARF.

“WiCell has grown to the point where it really needed a full-time executive director,” Kelly said. “In the last couple of years, it’s expanded both its services and its staff and much of its growth has been due to its operation of the National Stem Cell Bank and so it was recognized that WiCell needed it’s own full-time dedicated executive director.”

Forsberg received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Kalamazoo College in Michigan, and a doctorate in physiological and pharmacological sciences from the University of Chicago. Forsberg has also served on the UW-Madison Masters of Science in Biotechnology Advisory Board.