Andrew Lee's Research on
Protein Structure and Dynamics

Lee needed a protein to use as the base model in his study, which focuses on the structure and motion of proteins and their relationship with the protein's functions. He chose eglin c, a protein that was also being studied by Marshall Edgell, a professor in UNC's Department of Microbiology and Immunology. The collaboration with Edgell provides Lee with a wealth of data on eglin c, which Lee says would otherwise be very difficult to obtain.

"For us, it was too irresistible to stay away from that," Lee says of Edgell's research, which Lee says has saved his lab "years and years" of work.

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Andrew Lee's faculty profile

Click here to read more about Kashuba and her research.

Angela Kashuba's faculty profile

Angela Kashuba’s Work on the
Pharmacology of HIV Therapy

Kashuba’s expertise in the pharmacology of HIV Therapy has led to numerous collaborations, including

• Projects with colleagues from the UNC School of Medicine, including a study on preventing the transmission of the HIV virus from mother to infants and a study on HIV therapy in older populations.

• A study with Pfizer on the company’s chemokine receptor antagonist, a new class of antiretroviral drugs expected to be approved by the FDA in 2007.

• Collaborations with researchers across the country and around the world in her role as the director of the Clinical Pharmacology/Analytical Chemistry Core at UNC’s Center for AIDS Research.

Jian Liu's Development of a
Faster Way to Synthesize Heparin

A collaboration with Robert Linhardt of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute helped Liu develop an alternative way to produce heparin, a drug commonly used to stop or prevent blood from forming dangerous clots.

Heparin is a naturally occurring substance that is currently extracted from animal organs, which makes consistent production difficult. Researchers in the past have been able to synthesize heparin, but only in amounts too small to be practical. The method developed at UNC-Chapel Hill and Rensselaer, however, successfully synthesized hundreds of milligrams of heparin. The two institutions have jointly filed a provisional patent on the process, and the researchers are seeking a partner to support large-scale production of synthetic heparin for clinical studies.

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Jian Liu's faculty profile