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Amgen Mentors

The following faculty members have agreed to support UNC-Chapel Hill Amgen Scholars Programs. Applicants can use the links below to identify potential faculty mentors for their application. Faculty who are interested in becoming Amgen mentors should contact Dr. Jeremy Purvis or submit an application here.

Wubin Bai

Department: Applied Physical Sciences
Research Keywords: bioelectronics, biosensors, wearables, drug delivery devices, biotechnology

Aysenil Belger

Department: Psychiatry and Psychology and Neuroscience
Research Keywords: neuroimaging, cognition, adolescence, EEG, psychosis, anxiety, stress, risk for substance use.

Rebecca Berlow

Department: Biochemistry and Biophysics
Research Keywords: intrinsically disordered proteins, protein dynamics, transcriptional regulation

Joyce Besheer

Department: Psychiatry; Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies
Research Keywords: behavioral neuroscience; behavioral pharmacology; neurobiology; stress; rat models of alcohol drinking; alcohol; addiction; brain circuitry

Albert Bowers

Department: School of Pharmacy - Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry
Research Keywords: chemical biology, drug discovery

Russell Broaddus

Department: Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Research Keywords: endometrial cancer molecular mechanisms of invasiveness, DNA mismatch repair, wnt/b-catenin signaling in cancer

Christina Burch

Department: Biology
Research Keywords: viral evolution, computational biology

Sharon Campbell

Department: Biophysics and Biochemistry
Research Keywords: RAS inhibitors, tumorigenesis, RAS signaling, cell adhesion, cardiomyopathies, hybrid structural biology, biochemistry, signal transduction

Kathleen Caron

Department: Cell Biology and Physiology
Research Keywords: cardiovascular physiology, G protein-coupled receptors, orphan receptors, migraine, lymphatics, mouse models of human disease

Daniel Christoffel

Department: Psychology and Neuroscience
Research Keywords: neural circuits, reward processing, feeding, synaptic plasticity, obesity, habits

Jessica Cohen

Department: Psychology and Neuroscience
Research Keywords: executive functioning, longitudinal development, ADHD, fMRI, network neuroscience

Jean Cook

Department: Biochemistry and Biophysics
Research Keywords: cell proliferation and DNA replication control

Brian Diekman

Department: Biomedical Engineering
Research Keywords:

Ming Ding

Department: Department of Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine
Research Keywords: Data science, multi-omics (genetics, lipidomics, and proteomics), population studies, cardiovascular disease

Bob Duronio

Department: Biology, Genetics, iBGS
Research Keywords: Epigenetics, genomics, cell biology, developmental biology

Michael Emanuele

Department: Pharmacology
Research Keywords: cancer proliferation, cell cycle, signaling, proteomics, ubiquitin

Owen Fenton

Department: Pharmacy
Research Keywords: mRNA therapeutics, lipid nanoparticles, drug delivery, former amgen scholar (UC Berkeley 2009)

Sylvia Fitting

Department: Psychology and Neuroscience
Research Keywords: neuroHIV, drugs, cannabinoids, THC, CBD, inflammation, behavior

Kevin Frankowski

Department: Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry
Research Keywords: early stage drug discovery, small molecule optimization, synthetic organic chemistry, therapeutic areas: metastatic cancer, substance use disorder, opioid-free treatment of chronic pain, traumatic brain injury

Jimena Giudice

Department: Cell Biology and Physiology
Research Keywords: RNA processing, alternative splicing, heart, muscle, epigenetics

Misty Good

Department: Pediatrics, Microbiology & Immunology
Research Keywords: intestinal development, epithelial cell biology, mucosal immunology, pathogenesis of necrotizing enterocolitis

Lee Graves

Department: Pharmacology
Research Keywords: anticancer drugs, cancer metabolism, epigenetics, mitochondria

Carlos Guardia

Department: Reproductive and Developmental Biology Laboratory, NIEHS (NIH)
Research Keywords: autophagy, intracellular traffic, extracellular vesicles, hormone secretion, placenta development

James Hagood

Department: Pediatrics
Research Keywords: pulmonary fibrosis, lung biology, rare lung disease, antifibrotic drug development

Melissa Herman

Department: Pharmacology
Research Keywords: neuroscience, addiction, alcohol, nicotine, psychedelics, physiology, behavior

Indriati Hood Pishchany

Department: Pediatrics, Infectious Diseases
Research Keywords: microbiome, women's health, preclinical models, live biotherapeutics

Lindsey James

Department: Chemical Biology & Medicinal Chemistry
Research Keywords: epigenetics, chemical probe development, chromatin regulation, protein degradation

Ilona Jaspers

Department: Pediatrics/Curriculum in Toxicology and Environmental Medicine
Research Keywords: health effects, inhaled chemicals, aerosolized chemicals, respiratory mucosa, lung biology

Jeffrey Johnson

Department: Chemistry
Research Keywords: synthesis, catalysis, medicinal chemistry

Mehmet Kesimer

Department: Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Research Keywords: respiratory mucin/mucus biochemistry, biophysics, proteomics, lung and hypersecretory diseases, cystic fibrosis, chronic bronchitis, asthma, mucin glycoconjugates, tobacco and nicotine mechanistic/regulatory research, e-cigarettes

Helen Lazear

Department: Microbiology & Immunology
Research Keywords: virology, viral pathogenesis, vector-borne diseases, congenital infections, skin infections

Karin Leiderman

Department: Mathematics, Biochemistry & Biophysics, Computational Medicine Program, Blood Research Center
Research Keywords: computational model, mathematical model, biochemical reactions, blood coagulation

Pei Lim

Department: Diagnostic Sciences, Adams School of Dentistry
Research Keywords: orofacial pain, temporomandibular disorders, trigeminal neuropathic pain, headaches

Pengda Liu

Department: Biochemistry and Biophysics
Research Keywords: cancer therapy, E3 ubiquitin ligase, kinase, cell signaling

Thomas McCown

Department: Psychiatry/Gene Therapy Center
Research Keywords: adeno-associated virus vectors; epilepsy; capsid engineering; central nervous system; gene therapy

Daniel McKay

Department: Department of Biology, Department of Genetics
Research Keywords: epigenetic gene regulation, developmental biology, genomics

Yinglong Miao

Department: Pharmacology and Computational Medicine Program
Research Keywords: Biomolecular Modeling, Cellular Signaling, AI-Driven Drug Discovery

Adam Palmer

Department: Pharmacology, Computational Medicine Program
Research Keywords: drug combinations, cancer, systems biology, precision medicine

Samantha Pattenden

Department: Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry
Research Keywords: drug discovery, technology development, chromatin, transcription

William Polacheck

Department: Biomedical Engineering; Cell Biology and Physiology
Research Keywords: microphysiological systems, organs-on-chip, vascular biology, cancer, computational modeling, mechanotransduction

Jeremy Purvis

Department: Genetics; Computational Medicine
Research Keywords: systems biology, cell cycle, single-cell analysis, breast cancer

Daniel Schrider

Department: Department of Genetics
Research Keywords: evolution, population genetics, bioinformatics, computational biology, machine learning

Jeff Sekelsky

Department: Biology, Genetics
Research Keywords: genome stability, recombination, genomics

Zhenwei Song

Department: Gene Therapy Center, ESOP
Research Keywords: developing safer AAV gene therapy, evaluating AAV toxicity, spheroid culture, induced pluriportent stem cells

Chrystal Starbird

Department: Biochemistry and Biophysics
Research Keywords: structural biology, kinase inhibitor design, cellular signaling, receptor tyrosine kinases, cancer biology

Brian Strahl

Department: Biochemistry and Biophysics
Research Keywords: epigenetics, chromatin, histones, gene transcription

Ageliki Tsagaratou

Department: Genetics, Microbiology & Immunology
Research Keywords: molecular immunology, T cell biology, epigenetics, cancer, genomics, proteomics, single-cell approaches

Matthew Vogt

Department: Pediatric Infectious Diseases; Microbiology & Immunology
Research Keywords: human monoclonal antibodies, biologics, antivirals, enterovirus, picornavirus

Jason Whitmire

Department: Genetics; Microbiology & Immunology
Research Keywords: immunology, T cell biology, host genetics, viral pathogenesis

Gang Xi

Department: Medicine/UNC Kidney Center
Research Keywords: protein post-translation modifications, cell signal transduction, autoimmune diseases

Melinda Yates

Department: Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Research Keywords: uterine cancer, genetics, pharmacology, hormones

Senay Yitbarek

Department: Biology
Research Keywords: Microbiome, Disease Ecology and Evolution, Modeling, Experimental Evolution

Wei You

Department: Chemistry
Research Keywords: polymer-protein conjugate drug development

Samuel Young

Department: Pediatrics, Pharmacology
Research Keywords: neuroscience, gene therapy, calcium channels, synaptic transmission, genetics, molecular biology, viral vectors, biophysics

Qisheng Zhang

Department: Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmacology
Research Keywords: drug discovery, chemical biology, lipid signaling