Congratulations to Dr. Brian Strahl, Associate Professor of Biochemistry & Biophysics, for receiving the 2009 Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Award for Outstanding Artistic and Scholarly Achievement.
Dr. Strahl is one of four recipients of the Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Award this year. The Hettleman Prize includes a $5,000 stipend and recognizes the artistic and scholarly achievements of outstanding junior tenure-track or recently tenured faculty. The award was established by Phillip Hettleman in 1986. Hettleman was an alumnus of UNC who moved to New York to start a Wall Street investment firm, Hettleman & Co.
Currently, Dr. Strahl’s lab studies budding yeast as a model system to address the role of histone methylation in chromatin structure and function, especially as it relates to the process of gene transcription. They use a combination of biochemistry and genetics to study these enzymes, their associated factors, and the mechanisms behind how they regulate DNA-based activities in chromatin.
Dr. Strahl was also recently awarded an EUREKA award from the NIH last year and he is a past recipient of the UNC Jefferson Pilot Fellowship Award and Presidential Early Career Achievement Award.
Learn more about Dr. Strahl’s research: http://www.med.unc.edu/%7Ebstrahl/.