The UNC Catalyst for Rare Diseases hosted a meet-and-greet in the Genetic Medicine Building on Feb. 27 for Rare Diseases Day.
Catalyst scientists provided guests an overview of the research group’s mission and rare disease projects. UNC Catalyst is a research group focused on understanding and counteracting rare diseases. It creates high quality research tools to explore disease pathobiology, in order to accelerate the pace of drug discovery and help define options for therapeutic intervention.
“There are very few centers like Catalyst that are solely dedicated to rare diseases, nationally or internationally,” said Catalyst director Anthony Hickey, Ph.D. “We benefit from huge numbers of researchers interested in rare diseases at the pharmacy and medical schools at UNC.”
Rare Disease Day is a campaign to raise awareness amongst the general public, policy makers and health professionals about rare diseases. It was launched by EURORDIS and the Council of National Alliances in 2008.
One in 20 people will live with a rare disease at some point in their life, but there is no cure for the majority of rare diseases and many go undiagnosed, according to the campaign’s website.