News Release

By JIM WALSH
UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL – Two faculty members at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill recently were elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Dr. Anthony Hickey and Dr. Patricia Pukkila were awarded the honor by members of the international association for their efforts to advance science or its applications. They, along with the other 374 fellows for 2005, will be recognized for their contributions at a Feb. 18 forum during the AAAS annual meeting.

The AAAS, a nonprofit organization, seeks to advance science worldwide by serving as an educator, leader, spokesperson and professional association. The association publishes the journal Science, in addition to newsletters, books and reports.

Hickey, a molecular pharmaceutics and biomedical engineering professor, was recognized for his research on delivering medicines to the lungs and the development of devices to aid in that delivery. Pukkila, director of undergraduate research and an associate biology professor, was recognized for her work in genetics and her leadership in promoting undergraduate education and research.

Hickey joined the UNC faculty in 1993. He has been elected a fellow of the Institute of Biology of the United Kingdom and the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. He supervises a multidisciplinary group of engineers and scientists who study aerosol drug delivery to the lungs, and he collaborates with the nonprofit group Medicine in Need, a research organization based at Harvard University.

He is president and chief executive officer of Cirrus Pharmaceuticals Inc. and chief scientific officer of Oriel Therapeutics Inc., an emerging inhaled drug delivery company that uses technology developed at UNC.

Oriel recently reported that inventions central to its dry powder inhaler technology have been granted a U.S. patent.

Pukkila joined the UNC faculty in 1979 and has received a Tanner Award and a Bowman and Gordon Gray associate professorship for excellence in undergraduate teaching.

She is the founding director of the Office of Undergraduate Research in the College of Arts and Sciences. This office collaborates with units campuswide to expand mentored research opportunities for undergraduates inside and outside the classroom. The office fosters connections among investigators with varying levels of experience to allow undergraduates to make lasting contributions to intellectual life at the university.

Pukkila’s research focuses on the genetic basis of chromosome behavior during meiosis, the type of cell division by which germ cells (eggs and sperm) are produced.

Thirty-two UNC faculty members have been elected fellows of the AAAS.

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UNC News Services contact: Deb Saine, (919) 962-8415 or deborah_saine@unc.edu