Samuel Lai, a chemical and biomolecular engineer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has received a 2012 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, a five-year, $875,000 award that recognizes the nation’s most innovative young scientists.
Lai, an assistant professor at UNC’s Eshelman School of Pharmacy and a member of Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, is one of 16 recipients nationwide to be awarded the unrestricted grant from The David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
The Packard Foundation established the fellowships program in 1988 to provide young scientists early in their careers with flexible funding and the freedom to take risks and explore new frontiers in their fields of study.
Lai’s work combines biophysics and immunology to engineer next-generation antibodies and vaccines for improved protection and therapy at mucosal surfaces—work that aims to reinforce the body’s first line of defense against pathogens.
Lai joined the Eshelman School of Pharmacy in 2010 from Johns Hopkins University, where he had earned his doctoral degree in chemical and biomolecular engineering. That same year he received a $100,000 Grand Challenges Explorations grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. More recently, Lai won a Career Award from the National Science Foundation, the NSF’s most prestigious award for the development of junior faculty.
School of Pharmacy contact: David Etchison, (919) 966-7744, david_etchison@unc.edu