During a ceremony held yesterday, Carlo Di Lorenzo, MD, chief of the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, was announced as the first recipient of The Robert F. and Edgar T. Wolfe Foundation Chair in Pediatric Gastroenterology. One of a series of endowed chairs announced by Nationwide Children’s this month, the Robert F. Wolfe and Edgar T. Wolfe Foundation, a supporting foundation of The Columbus Foundation, was created in 1989 by John W. Wolfe to honor the memory of his grandfather and father, Robert F. Wolfe and Edgar T. Wolfe.
Robert F. Wolfe arrived in Columbus in 1888 and found work as a shoemaker, eventually beginning the successful Wolfe Brothers Shoe Company. In 1903, he bought The Ohio State Journal with his brother, Harry P. Wolfe. In 1905, they acquired The Columbus Dispatch. Robert’s son, Edgar T. Wolfe, Sr., began working for the Journal in 1919 as an advertising solicitor. He later became co-publisher of both the Journal and the Dispatch.
John W. Wolfe, the son of Edgar T. Wolfe, Sr., began his career with Ohio National Bank in 1948. In 1975, he became chairman of the Dispatch Printing Company, parent organization of The Columbus Dispatch. He was appointed to the Governing Committee of The Columbus Foundation in 1984 and provided leadership for decades in the health field in central Ohio.
In 1995, the Wolfe Foundation established four permanent endowment funds, which provides support to Nationwide Children’s Hospital Foundation, COSI Columbus, The McConnell Heart Health Center and The Columbus Foundation.
Carlo Di Lorenzo, MD, is also professor of Clinical Pediatrics at The Ohio State University. He went to Medical School in Italy at the II University of Medicine in Naples. He completed research fellowships with a focus on motility and functional gastrointestinal disorders in children and adults in Brussels, Belgium and at the University of Southern California. He then concluded his pediatric gastroenterology training at Harbor-UCLA. Dr. Di Lorenzo then moved to Pittsburgh where he became Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Motility Center at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. In 2004 he moved to Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Di Lorenzo has co-authored the only two books on pediatric gastrointestinal motility and has published more than 200 peer review original articles and 80 chapters, invited reviews and editorials. He is current President-Elect of the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition and has been a member of the Subboard of Pediatric Gastroenterology of the American Board of Pediatrics. Dr. Di Lorenzo has also been member of the Functional GI Disorders and Motility Disorders Working Group of the National Commission on Digestive Diseases (NCDD). He was awarded the Master Award in Gastroenterology for Basic or Clinical research in Gastroenterology by the AGA Institute and the 2013 IFFGD Clinical Research in Pediatrics Award.
For clinicians and researchers working in academic-medical institutions like Nationwide Children’s, endowed chairs represent the most prestigious and significant recognition of their work.
Carlo Di Lorenzo, MD, chief of the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology at Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Note to editor: Dr. Di Lorenzo is a resident of New Albany, OH 43054.