Garegin Papoian, Ph.D., an assistant professor of chemistry in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, has received a national award for research and teaching given to outstanding young faculty in the chemical sciences.
Papoian has been named a 2008 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. The $75,000 award is given by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation of New York City, which was created in 1946 to promote the chemical sciences.
Papoian uses advanced computational methods to study biophysical processes at multiple scales, including protein dynamics, chromatin folding and regulation of cell motility. Packaging of genetic materials in cells of higher organisms is accomplished using chromatin, the complex of DNA and protein found inside the nuclei of cells. Cell motility processes allow cells to move around in the body, for example, to move to a wound site and aid in repair.
Papoian, who has been at UNC since 2004, is the winner of numerous awards, including a Beckman Foundation Young Investigators Award, a Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award and an R.J. Reynolds Excellence Junior Faculty Development Award.
He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University, where he won the Wentink Prize, given to outstanding graduate students. He also received a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health.
Web site: http://www.dreyfus.org/
College of Arts and Sciences contact: Kim Spurr, (919) 962-4093, spurrk@email.unc.edu
News Services contact: Patric Lane, (919) 962-8596, patric_lane@unc.edu