Wayne State University President M. Roy Wilson today announced that Jack D. Sobel, M.D., has been appointed full dean of the WSU School of Medicine for a "time-limited term."

Dr. Sobel had been serving as interim dean since Nov. 24.

Wilson said he offered the appointment after consultation with the university's Board of Governors and the leadership of the Academic Senate and the WSU Chapter of the American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers.

"Jack is trusted and respected by the faculty and our hospital partners, and his intimate knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the School of Medicine will benefit us greatly during his tenure," Wilson said.

A search for a long-term dean to replace Dr. Sobel should begin in about two years, Wilson said.

"It is a distinct honor to lead this great institution, and I am happy to serve," Dean Sobel said. "While we have made great strides and have a considerable number of accomplishments under our belt, we have much work to do, and I am proud that the president and those he consulted have the confidence in me to assist in leading that endeavor."

A 1965 graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in South Africa, Dr. Sobel served as a research fellow in Infectious Diseases, Laboratory of Clinical Investigation, National Institute of Allergic and Infectious Diseases, with the National Institutes of Health, and as a fellow in Infectious Diseases at the Medical College of Pennsylvania. He joined the Wayne State University School of Medicine as a professor of internal medicine in 1985, and was named chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases.

One of the world's foremost authorities on bacterial vaginosis, Dr. Sobel is a widely published and strongly funded physician-researcher. He has been involved in basic science, translational and clinical research since the inception of his Infectious Diseases Research Fellowship in 1976 at the NIH Laboratory of Clinical Investigation. He has served as a consultant for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's special committee for recommending guidelines for the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases.

He also served as president of the Michigan Infectious Diseases Society from 1997 to 1999, and is a member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the National State President's Committee and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, Practice Guidelines Committee.

The chair of the Division of Research in the internal medicine department, Dr. Sobel also is a professor of WSU Immunology and Microbiology, and of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

He received the Golden Apple Award for best clinical teacher in 1979 and the Medical House Staff Award for Excellence in Clinical Teaching in1984 at the Medical College of Pennsylvania. He was given the Distinguished Faculty Award from the WSU Department of Internal Medicine in 1986 and the School of Medicine's Teaching Award in 2004. In 2008 he received the Gershenson Distinguished Faculty Award, and in 2011 was elected to the WSU Academy of Scholars.

Dr. Sobel has been consistently named a Best Doctor in America since 1998, a Top Doctor since 1995 and a Super Doctor since 2011.