Camillo Artom, MD, was a scientist with an international reputation in lipid metabolism who was forced to leave Italy because of the rise of fascism.
He was recruited by Dean Coy C. Carpenter to join the school of medicine at Wake Forest College in 1939. He moved with the school to Winston-Salem in 1941 for the inaugural year of Bowman Gray School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, heading the Department of Biochemistry from 1939 through 1963.
During his career, Artom published more than 200 scientific papers. Known as the ‘fat’ chemist, he was renowned for his expertise in how the body digests fat, as well as research in atherosclerosis and pioneering work with radioactive isotopes.