The UNC Medical Center has earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval® for the NC Children’s Allergy and Asthma Center by demonstrating continuous compliance with its performance standards. The Gold Seal is a symbol of quality that reflects a health care organization’s commitment to providing safe and quality patient care.
Dr. Meghan Rebuli, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Allergy-Immunology, has been appointed Vice Chair of UNC Chapel Hill IRB #5 – Board E (IRB # 540).
UNC School of Medicine researchers Meghan E. Rebuli, PhD, and Ilona Jaspers, PhD, are co-authors on a paper published Tuesday, Aug. 2, in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, titled “Smoking and e-cigarette use: key variables in testing IgA-oriented intranasal vaccines.”
The UNC School of Medicine has been selected to participate in a new study to examine the comparative effectiveness of asthma treatments. The project will focus on which of two treatment types – inhaled steroids or specific antibiotics, alone or together – works best in different patients. The UNC site lead investigators are Michelle Hernandez, MD, professor in the UNC Department of Pediatrics, and Katrina Donahue, MD, MPH, professor and vice chair of research in the UNC Department of Family Medicine.
With the FDA ordering Juul to stop selling their e-cigarette devices, UNC School of Medicine researchers led by Ilona Jaspers, PhD, published the first study to compare the respiratory immune health effects of different types of devices.
The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated a critical need to establish a pre-emptive stockpile of tangible immunobiological countermeasures to accelerate the response to potential pandemic threats. To address this need we have established a pandemic response repository through microbial and immunological surveillance and epidemiology (PREMISE) initiative.
Dr. Virkud joined the Division of Pediatric Allergy-Immunology as faculty on October 1, 2021. Dr. Virkud received her medical degree from Washington University in 2008. She completed her pediatric residency at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in 2011. Her clinical and research fellowships were completed at Duke University in 2014. Dr. Virkud was most recently an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital for Children. Welcome Yamini!
Dr. Keet joined the Department of Pediatrics as faculty in the Division of Allergy/Immunology on August 30, 2021. Dr. Keet completed her medical degree at the University of California – San Francisco in 2004. Subsequently, completing her pediatric residency in 2007 and fellowship in allergy/immunology in 2010, both at Johns Hopkins. After joining the faculty at Johns Hopkins in 2010, she earned a PhD in epidemiology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2014. Dr. Keet is a successful researcher and has served in a variety of leadership roles – we are excited she is joining us at at UNC.
Dr. Smeekens joined the Department of Pediatrics as faculty in the Division of Allergy-Immunology on July 26, 2021. Dr. Smeekens received her PhD in Chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2017.
Michelle Hernandez, MD, Division of Allergy-Immunology, was promoted to Professor of Pediatrics effective July 16, 2021. Dr. Hernandez has been a faculty member in Pediatric Allergy-Immunology since 2007.
