Chancellor’s Innovation Circle Faculty Working Group Steering Committee
JOHN AKIN Austin H. Carr Distinguished Professor and Chair Department of Economics John Akin is serving his tenth year as Chair of the Economics Department. He received his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Michigan and taught briefly at the University of Wisconsin before coming to UNC in 1973. Much of his research and teaching have focused on financing and organizing health systems in developing countries. He has twice spent two year periods at the World Bank, once in the headquarters in D.C. designing the Bank's health financing guidelines and once in Uganda directing health reform activities in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. In 1989 he and a group of colleagues at the Carolina Population Center designed and initiated a recurring survey of health and nutrition information for China. That survey, the China Health and Nutrition Survey, continues to the present. He is married to Ella Akin, a Data Quality Assurance Manager in the UNC School of Medicine.
RICHARD BOUCHER William Rand Kenan Professor of Medicine Director, Cystic Fibrosis/Pulmonary Research and Treatment Center Co-Director, UNC Gene Therapy Center Director, NC BioStart Dr. Boucher is a pioneer in gene therapy for cystic fibrosis. He and his colleagues have been instrumental in developing strategies for clinical deployment of gene therapy techniques in inherited disease and are now focusing these same tools and expertise on the treatment of lung cancer and malignant pleural effusions. He has compared the transduction of non-small lung cancer cells by adenoviral and retroviral vectors and found that Ad vectors transduce squamous, adenoquamous and malignant mesothelial cells better than adenocarcinoma or large cells. Sensitive cells appear to have specificity for the Ad fiber knob. Retroviral transduction appears to be more efficient for adenocarcinoma cells metastic to the pleural space. Further investigation of the use of retroviral gene transfer in malignant pleural effusions demonstrated proteoglycans/glycosaminoglycans in effusions were inhibitory to viral transduction due to direct interaction with the vector. These results suggested that drainage of the pleural cavity may be necessary before attempting retroviral gene transfer into metastatic tumor cells. Dr. Boucher has also explored the transfer of several pro-drug metabolizing enzymes into
adenocarcinoma cell lines and demonstrated superior efficacy of cytosine deaminase in association with its prodrug, 5-fluorocystine. Dr. Boucher is also the Director of NC BioStart, a program of the NC TraCS Institute, was established to increase the commercialization of the intellectual property developed by our public universities in North Carolina, beginning in the first year at UNC, expanding to include NCSU in the second year, and eventually including all UNC system schools. McKAY COBLE UNC Faculty Chair Chair, Department of Dramatic Art McKay Coble has been on the Department of Dramatic Art faculty and with PlayMakers Repertory Company since 1987 as a resident designer in both costume and set design. Ms. Coble has worked as a designer with the Alley Theatre, Clarence Brown Theatre, Hartford Stage, Utah Shakespeare Festival, New York's 14th Street Playhouse, Weathervane Theatre in New Hampshire and Milwaukee Repertory Theatre. As a Resident Designer at PlayMakers, Ms. Coble has won the Best Scenic Design Award from the Classical Voice of North Carolina for both "Not About Heroes" (2004) and "Hobson's Choice" (2004). Ms. Coble has co-authored a recently published book entitled "Theatre, A Way of Seeing" and has written an adaptation for the stage of "The Snow Queen" (1998). In addition to her work with the theatre, Professor Coble serves as chair of the Department of Dramatic Art and as UNC's Chair of Faculty.
JOSEPH DeSIMONE Chancellor’s Eminent Professor of Chemistry Director, Institute for Advanced Materials, Nanoscience and Technology Joseph DeSimone is the Chancellor’s Eminent Professor of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Chemical Engineering at North Carolina State University. He has published over 240 scientific articles and has over 115 issued patents in his name with over 120 patents pending. In 2005 DeSimone was elected into the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received 40 major awards and recognitions including the 2009 NIH Director’s Pioneer Award; the 2009 North Carolina Award; the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for Invention and Innovation; the 2008 Tar Heel of the Year by the Raleigh News & Observer; 2007 Collaboration Success Award from the Council for Chemical Research; the 2005 ACS Award for Creative Invention; the 2002 John Scott Award presented by the City Trusts, Philadelphia, given to "the most deserving" men and women whose inventions have contributed in some outstanding way to the "comfort,
welfare and happiness" of mankind; the 2002 Engineering Excellence Award by DuPont; the 2002 Wallace H. Carothers Award from the Delaware Section of the ACS; 2000 Oliver Max Gardner Award from the University of North Carolina, given to that person, who in the opinion of the Board of Governors' Committee, ". . . during the current scholastic year, has made the greatest contribution to the welfare of the human race". Among DeSimone’s notable inventions is an environmentally friendly manufacturing process that relies on supercritical carbon dioxide instead of water and biopersistent surfactants (detergents) for the creation of fluoropolymers such as Teflon®. In 2002, DeSimone, along with Dr. Richard Stack, a cardiologist at Duke, co-founded Bioabsorbable Vascular Solutions (BVS) to commercialize a fully bioabsorbable, drug-eluting stent. BVS was acquired by Guidant Corporation in 2003. He recently launched Liquidia Technologies (www.liquidia.com) which now employs almost 50 people in RTP and has raised over $30 million in venture financing. DeSimone’s laboratory and the PRINT technology recently became a foundation for the new $20 million Carolina Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence funded by the National Cancer Institute. DeSimone received his BS in Chemistry in 1986 from Ursinus College in Collegeville, PA and his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1990 from Virginia Tech. STEPHEN FRYE Research Professor, Eshelman School of Pharmacy Director, Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery After obtaining a BS in chemistry at North Carolina State University in 1983, Stephen Frye joined the laboratory of Professor Ernest Eliel at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Frye's research at UNC focused on asymmetric synthesis and included an off-campus research fellowship in Lausanne, Switzerland, to investigate mechanisms of stereoselective organometallic reactions via NMR kinetics. Upon completing his PhD in 1987, Frye began his professional career as a medicinal chemist at the newly initiated US research site for Glaxo, located at that time in temporary facilities in Venable Hall on the UNC campus. He subsequently led the project that resulted in Avodart, GlaxoSmithKline’s dual 5a-reductase inhibitor for treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia. The drug is currently under investigation for the prevention of prostate cancer. Shortly after Glaxo merged with Wellcome in 1995, Frye established a new chemistry department in the Research Triangle Park based upon kinase target class science and GSK’s kinase inhibitors. Tykerb (a dual erbB2/EGFR inhibitor approved for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer) and Pazopanib (in Phase III trials for renal carcinoma) were discovered within this department. In 1999 he began a secondment at GW’s Stevenage site in the United Kingdom leading a research unit in medicinal chemistry. Following the merger with GSK in the spring of 2000, he was selected to lead GSK’s High Throughput Chemistry Group that evolved into Discovery Medicinal Chemistry (DMC). Over the seven years Frye led DMC, the group grew to more than 200 chemists and developed global target-class chemical science and a compound collection strategy that enhanced both the productivity and quality of GSK’s hit and lead generation across all therapeutic areas. Stephen joined
the UNC School of Pharmacy in October 2007 to create a new Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery in cooperation with the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, the School of Medicine, and the Department of Chemistry. ARVIND MALHOTRA Thomas V. and Janet R. Lewis Scholar and Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship Kenan-Flagler Business School The impact of digital innovations, knowledge management, virtual teams and inter-organizational partnerships are areas of research for Arvind Malhotra. His research projects include studying successful innovative organizational and interorganizational structures; adoption of innovative technologies, such as wireless, by consumers and organizations; and management of knowledge in interorganizational contexts. Dr. Malhotra has received research grants from the Society for Information Managers Advanced Practices Council, Dell, Carnegie-Bosche Institute, National Science Foundation, RosettaNet consortium, UNC-Small Grants Program and the Marketing Sciences Institute. He has consulted, conducted applied research projects or led executive development workshops with the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, IBM, ExxonMobil, Primax Properties, Sprint, RosettaNet Consortium, American Golf Corporation, Cisco, ING Direct and Cargill Sweeteners. Dr. Malhotra's research has been published in leading academic journals such as Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Academy of Management Perspectives, Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, Journal of Service Research, Journal of Academy of Marketing Sciences, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of Knowledge Management and Communications of the ACM. He received the best paper award from MIS Quarterly, the top information science journal, in 2001, and the best paper of the year from the Journal of Services Research and Journal of Knowledge Management in 2005. Two of his papers have earned the prestigious Society for Information Managers Best Paper Award. He received his PhD in business administration and his MS in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Southern California. He earned his BE in electronics and communications engineering from the University of Delhi.
ETTA PISANO Vice Dean for Academic Affairs, UNC School of Medicine Kenan Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering Director of the UNC TRacS Institute Director, Biomedical Research Imaging Center Etta D. Pisano, M.D., has served as Vice Dean for Academic Affairs in the UNC School of Medicine since June 2006 and is also Kenan Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering and Director of the UNC Biomedical Research Imaging Center, which studies ways to develop and use technology to treat cancer and heart disease, among other ailments. She is also the Director of the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute (NC TRacS), whose mission is to transform all activities relating to clinical and translational research by creating new programs and pathways that make it easier for research to be performed at UNC and throughout the state of North Carolina A fellow in the American College of Radiology and the Society of Breast Imaging, Dr. Pisano is board-certified in diagnostic radiology. She has received many honors and awards for her contributions to the improvement of breast imaging and its role in cancer diagnosis. She was named one of "20 Most Influential People" in radiology by Diagnostic Imaging in 2002; one of "America's Top Doctors" by Castle, Connolly Medical, Ltd., several years in a row; and one of America's best breast cancer doctors by Redbook in 2001. In addition, she received the Health Breakthrough award from Ladies’ Home Journal in 2006. That award honored Dr. Pisano for her work as principal investigator in Digital Mammographic Imaging Screening Trial (DMIST), which showed that digital mammograms are as reliable as film mammograms and are better at finding breast cancer in young women and those with dense breast tissue. Dr. Pisano is a member of the Radiological Society of North America and the American Roentgen Ray Society and is a past-president of the Association of University Radiologists. She serves as chairperson of the American College of Radiology Imaging Network Breast Committee and the International Digital Mammography Development Group. Pisano received an A.B. in Philosophy from Darthmouth College, and her M.D. from Duke University. She performed her residency at Beth Israel Hospital, and interned at the Pensacola Educational Program.
GEOFFREY SAYRE-MCCORD Morehead Alumni Distinguished Professor and Chair of Philosophy Geoffrey Sayre-McCord is a philosopher who works in moral theory, metaethics, the history of ethics, and epistemology and has written extensively in these areas. He is known especially for his work on moral realism and on David Hume's moral theory. He has also written on contractualism. His Essays on Moral Realism is widely used in undergraduate and graduate courses on meta-ethics and he was, for five years, a co-editor of the highly regarded journal No没s. Sayre-McCord received his BA from Oberlin College and his PhD (under the direction of David Gauthier) from the University of Pittsburgh. The recipient of several university-wide teaching awards, Sayre-McCord is the Morehead Alumni Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of North Carolina, where he has taught since 1985.