Three faculty members receive Jefferson-Pilot Fellowships

CHAPEL HILL -- Three junior faculty members in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine recently received Jefferson-Pilot Fellowships in Academic Medicine.

The recipients were Dr. Eva Anton, an assistant professor in the department of cell and molecular physiology; Dr. Dale Ramsden, an assistant professor in the department of biochemistry and physics; and Dr. Giselle Corbie-Smith, an assistant professor in the departments of social medicine and internal medicine

The awards were presented by Dr. Jeffrey L. Houpt, dean of the School of Medicine, vice chancellor for medical affairs and chief executive officer of UNC Health Care. Each award comes with $20,000 over the next four years.

The Jefferson-Pilot Corp. established a trust fund within The Medical Foundation of North Carolina Inc. to create the fellowship program. Jefferson-Pilot fellows are selected annually, and the program’s aim is to attract and retain promising junior faculty in the School of Medicine.

Anton’s work focuses on discovering the cellular cues used during brain development to establish the radial glial cell system and its role in guiding migrating cortical neurons. He already has received independent National Institutes of Health funding in this area, has received many invitations to lecture outside UNC, has multiple peer-reviewed journal articles and has received three prestigious national awards.

Corbie-Smith’s research interests center on the design, execution and evaluation of multi-faceted interventions to increase minority participation in clinical research. She has multiple peer-reviewed articles in publications, has presented at important national clinical research meetings and has already received outside funding. Her clinical activities include precepting in UNC Hospitals’ General Medicine Resident Clinic and working with the Moncure Health Center of Piedmont Health Services.

Ramsden’s research interests are in the field of DNA repair, and he has been a pioneer in developing and applying in vitro approaches to study end joining and double strand break repair. He brings a detailed biochemical approach to the processes by which recombination occurs in the normal cell and goes awry in the cancer cell. He already has received independent NIH funding, has multiple peer-reviewed articles in journals and has received many invitations to give presentations.

- 30 -

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