{"id":4094,"date":"2017-03-24T19:25:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-24T23:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/biochem\/benfeard-williams-receives-his-phd\/"},"modified":"2018-08-01T10:27:53","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T14:27:53","slug":"benfeard-williams-receives-his-phd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/biochem\/news\/benfeard-williams-receives-his-phd\/","title":{"rendered":"Grad student Benfeard Williams receives his PhD"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class=\"lead\">Benfeard successfully defended his dissertation and received his PhD on March 24, 2017.<\/p>\n<div class=\"image-section\">\n<figure class=\"thumbnail wp-caption alignright\">\n    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium size-full wp-image-4095\" src=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/biochem\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/795\/2018\/07\/benfeard-williams-receives-his-phd-image2.jpeg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" alt=\"image2\"\/><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">Benfeard Williams, PhD<br \/>\n    <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0); \">Benfeard Williams, under the direction of <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"http:\/\/danger.med.unc.edu\/\" target=\"_self\" title=\"\">Dr. Nikolay Dokholyan<\/a>, successfully defended his dissertation and received his Ph.D. on March 24, 2017. The title of his dissertation is<\/span><i>\u201cThe Structure of Apolipoprotein E Isoforms and their Role in Alzheimer\u2019s Disease.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0); \">Benfeard did his undergraduate work at Duke University, where he studied cell cycle oscillations in yeast and electron transfer properties in DNA in the labs of Nicolas Buchler and David Beratan. His <\/span>research is focused on computationally exploring the conformations of a lipid binding protein, ApoE4, implicated in the development of Alzheimer\u2019s disease. He is also actively involved in developing software and novel methods for RNA structure prediction that utilize experimentally derived constraints.<\/p>\n<p>During his predoctoral studies, Beanfeard has been involved in teaching UNC graduate students through the \u201cHow to Learn to Code\u201d summer course that he helped develop, and in addition, he led a monthly student-led science workshop for homeschooled students. He is currently interning at UNC\u2019s Office of Commercialization and Economic Development and plans to pursue a career in intellectual property with a focus on patents.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><!-- description --> <\/p>\n<p class='lead'>Benfeard successfully defended his dissertation and received his PhD on March 24, 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12066,"featured_media":4095,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"layout":"","cellInformation":"","apiCallInformation":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[32,30,28,3,31,4,13],"class_list":["post-4094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-2017_student_year_in-review","tag-2017-year-in-review","tag-news_2017","tag-news_dept","tag-news_studentpostdocstaff_s17","tag-recent-news","tag-news_students","odd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Grad student Benfeard Williams receives his PhD | Biochemistry and Biophysics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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