fbpx
University News

Excellence Unveiled: Jasmine King

The research assistant professor discusses her work to develop drug delivery strategies to treat cancer and her passion for working in women’s health.

Press play above to listen

Each month, WCHL will feature stories highlighting Carolina excellence from outstanding Tar Heels to share why they’re passionate about their work and shine a light on their important contributions to the community, state and beyond.

Tune in to Excellence Unveiled during morning, noon and evening drive times to hear their stories and find out what ignites their passion for their work. Excellence Unveiled is an exclusive program on WCHL, sponsored by UNC-Chapel Hill. You can listen to WCHL at 97.9 FM or 1360 AM.

Read a transcript of the segment below:

Chancellor Lee H. Roberts: Welcome to Excellence Unveiled, sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I’m Chancellor Lee Roberts, and it’s my pleasure to shine a light on our talented Carolina community and its outstanding work. This month, we feature Jasmine King, a research assistant professor in the UNC-NC State Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering. She will talk about her important work developing drug delivery platforms that treat cancer.

Jasmine King: The research that I’m currently involved in [is] centered around cancer research in women’s health. As a graduate student, a lot of my work centered around optimizing drug delivery strategies for brain cancer. This is really near and dear to me, particularly because I grew up in a rural area where a lot of people didn’t really have access to care, particularly Black women. For me to be working in the area of women’s health and then pairing that with cancer research, particularly breast cancer research, and really wanting to delve into cervical cancer. I’m just super excited to do the research that I do. I think that there is a huge unmet need for women’s health, and what better way [than] to have women researchers working in women’s health?

I was raised by my grandmother, who didn’t have more than a fifth-grade education, so I knew for myself that I either wanted to be in the medical field or in the research field to increase access to care for women or increase research opportunities that would target Black women, in particular, or women as a whole. Being raised by my grandmother and seeing her battle with breast cancer, colon cancer and a lot of other chronic conditions, for me, I knew that I would pursue a field, whether it was centered around the medical field or research.

To be able to be where I am today, making a change and trying to bridge the gap and increase access to care for women’s health, I’m just super excited. And I hope that I can continue on the path and make a particular product that can actually be on the market one day.