The Hamner Institutes of Health Sciences and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have announced a $10 million, three-year spool-up of a pharmaceutical industry-funded research center to improve the nation's drug-safety landscape.
The new Center for Drug Safety Sciences, to be located on the 56-acre Hamner campus in Research Triangle Park, is to involve about 20 scientists within its first year, using cutting-edge technologies such as bioinformatics to parse potential problems out of medicines before they hit the marketplace.
Paul Watkins, M.D, a gastroenterologist and internist and UNC-CH professor of medicine, has been named head the drug safety center. He maintains his UNC faculty post, and has begun the process of hiring four more faculty members, who are to be paid by the UNC-CH schools of pharmacy and medicine. Watkins said each faculty member is likely to bring a team of postdoctoral fellows and federal grant money.
The Hamner Institutes are named for Charles Hamner, retired head of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.