Researchers in the Benhabbour Laboratory and their collaborators were nominated and selected for the Charles C. Shepard Science Award for 2024.
Their research, published in 2023 in Nature Communications, was titled “Ultra-Long Acting in-situ forming implants with Cabotegravir protect female macaques against rectal SHIV infection.” The paper, which focuses on developing and testing a long-acting implant for drug delivery of HIV treatment, was nominated to represent the Division of HIV Prevention.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (CDC/ATSDR), the Charles C. Shepard Science Awards were established in 1986 and were named in honor of Charles C. Shepard, M.D. The award’s namesake was an internationally recognized microbiologist, and he also served as Chief of the Leprosy and Rickettsia Branch at the CDC for more than 30 years. The Shepard Awards are presented to recipients for scientific publications in several areas, but the Benhabbour laboratory was recognized for its outstanding efforts in laboratory methods.
The Benhabbour Lab is led by Rahima Benhabbour, associate professor of the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering. The laboratory is located in the UNC-Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics and is part of the Center in Nanotechnology and Drug Delivery (CNDD). The lab works to harness engineering, chemistry and pharmacology to design and engineer new drug delivery platforms and polymer-based devices for disease treatment and prevention.
To read more about the Benhabbour Lab’s publication awarded by the CDC, please visit this link.
To learn more about Charles C. Shepard’s contributions, please see the CDC’s Awards History, or visit this page for more award information.