From the School of Medicine Genetic published July 30th, Drs. Jason Stein (Assistant Professor) and Hyejung Won (Assistant Professor) have been awarded an U01 grant from the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) for their project titled “Discovery and validation of genetic variation impacting the gene regulatory landscape during human cortical development”. Continued

Susan G. Komen®, the world’s largest nonprofit funder of cancer research, has appointed UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Melissa Troester, PhD, to this year’s class of Komen Scholars. Continued

Boosting immune system T cells to effectively attack solid tumors, such as breast cancers, can be done by adding a small molecule to a treatment procedure called chimeric antigen receptor-T (CAR-T) cell therapy, according to a study by researchers at the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. The boost helps recruit more immune cells into battle … Continued

Calina Copos, PhD Dr. Copos arrived at UNC from the Courant Institute for Mathematical Sciences at New York University. She is a mathematical biologist who uses computational tools to reveal mechanisms in cell biology. She develops mechanical and biochemical theoretical models of single and collective cell migration and self-organization inside cells. These interests are motivated … Continued

There is an urgent need for a vaccine with efficacy against SARS-CoV-2. We hypothesize that peptide vaccines containing epitope regions optimized for concurrent B cell, CD4+ T cell, and CD8+ T cell stimulation would drive both humoral and cellular immunity with high specificity, potentially avoiding undesired effects such as antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE)

Christoph Rau, PhD My research focuses on using model organism populations to study cardiovascular disease.  I obtained my PhD in Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics at UCLA, where I began working with the Hybrid Mouse Diversity Panel to study the genetics underlying heart failure.  In my postdoc, I expanded into studying the epigenome and developing … Continued

A multidisciplinary team led by Dr. Mark Zylka shows that deletion of TOP1, an enzyme that relieves DNA stress during transcription, in neurons causes genomic instability and early onset of neurodegeneration. Read this exciting work in Nature  

Researchers led by Blossom Damania, PhD, reported that Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, a virus linked to three human cancers, uses a protein produced by its human host to come out of hiding and reactivate.

Jonathan Serody, MD, director of UNC’s Bone Marrow Transplantation & Cellular Therapy Program, is the new division chief for hematology. Ethan Basch, MD, the Richard M. Goldberg Distinguished Professor in Medical Oncology, is the new division chief for oncology. Both are members of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. More

Christoph Rau, PhD My research focuses on using model organism populations to study cardiovascular disease.  I obtained my PhD in Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics at UCLA, where I began working with the Hybrid Mouse Diversity Panel to study the genetics underlying heart failure.  In my postdoc, I expanded into studying the epigenome and developing … Continued