Reshaping Genetics Research

Dr. Adriana Beltran, Associate Professor of Genetics and Director of Human Pluripotent Cell Core, receives prestigious research fund award.

The Department of Genetics has established a non-endowed program fund in the UNC Health Foundation – the Chair’s Mid-Career Genetics Faculty Research Fund.

Funds were provided by a donor based on their belief that cutting-edge fundamental research relies on the creativity and ingenuity of scientists and their willingness to challenge long-held assumptions. The fund is intended to provide outstanding mid-career scientists with the freedom to continue to challenge dogma and engage in transformative research. The fund provides a three-year award for an Associate Professor. Dr. Adriana Beltran (Associate Professor and Director of the Human Pluripotent Cell Core) is the first recipient of this new award.

Dr. Beltran intends to utilize these funds to advance high-risk, high-reward projects focused on developing novel physiological models, functional assays, and analytical pipelines. Using novel systems, including patient-specific neuronal models of epilepsy, hepatocyte-neuron integrated systems to study the brain-liver axis, and estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer organoid models, Beltran proposes to redefine how we study disease by using physiologically relevant cellular systems.

Story originally published by UNC School of Medicine.

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