Research

For the first time in the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s nearly 80-year history, a faculty member has won a NASA Exobiology grant. Assistant Professor of Bioinformatics and Genomics Richard Allen White III will use the ultra-competitive grant in his research on microbialites, a kind of “living rock” that could hold the key to how life formed on Earth.

Srijan Das and Xiang Zhang, two first-year faculty researchers in the College of Computing and Informatics, have received funding from the National Science Foundation to investigate how artificial intelligence can benefit older adults and others in health care settings.

Globally, the population aged 65 and older is growing. By 2050, the UN projects one in six people will exceed the age of 65. In North America and Europe, the number could be one in four.

UNC Charlotte’s upward trajectory toward top-tier research university status is supported by a recent national report of research expenditures for U.S. colleges and universities.

Cancer, which affects millions every year, requires proteins to spread through the body. In a new strategy to beat the wide-ranging disease, scientists are sabotaging its protein factories.

The most important digital currency in ecommerce is data. As personal information is collected and shared, risks to individual privacy climb, and UNC Charlotte computer scientist Liyue Fan is researching novel ways to better protect individuals’ personal data.

Charlotte faculty members Kirill Afonin and Margaret Quinlan are the 2023 recipients of the First Citizens Bank Scholars Medal and the Harshini V. de Silva Graduate Mentor Award, respectively.

A team at UNC Charlotte’s Center for Computational Intelligence to Predict Health and Environmental Risks and Tuple, a Charlotte-based genomics consulting firm, has used artificial intelligence to rapidly assess the public health implications of the newly emergent SARS-CoV-2 XBB.1.5 variant.

Faculty members from the College of Health and Human Services and the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences studied the social media response to the campus shooting that occurred in April 2019.

Updated boosters administered on an annual or biannual basis greatly reduce the long-term risk of infection from endemic COVID-19.

UNC Charlotte’s business and innovation partners returned to the University Wednesday, Dec. 7, after a three-year, pandemic-related hiatus for the Research and Business Partners Celebration hosted by the Division of Research.