Oct 1, 2004
The Carolina Population Center has been awarded a grant under NIH’s prestigious National Center for Research Resources Program. The grant will be used to establish an Inter-Disciplinary Obesity Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. NIH awarded only 21 of these grants nationwide, and UNC received three of them. The Obesity Center will be headed by Dr. Barry M. Popkin, Professor of Nutrition and a CPC fellow.
The long-term goal of the center will be to develop effective ways of preventing and treating obesity that can be used anywhere in the country, Popkin said. Obesity is particularly a problem in North Carolina and throughout the South.
Included will be leading scholars organized in seven overlapping topical clusters who will meet regularly to develop a common language, identify needs and design and plan specific research projects, he said. Top university administrators have committed themselves to helping overcome barriers to interdisciplinary programs so investigators can have the resources, time and space to achieve the center’s goals.
For more information on this grant and the 2 others received by UNC for inflammation and genetic abnormalities, please see the attached press release.