Well Said

Michael Kosorok, the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Biostatistics and chair of the biostatistics department at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, believes that we are in the early stages of the precision medicine revolution

This budding revolution, which involves biology, genetics and other aspects of the lifestyle of individual people, could seriously improve clinician’s ability to provide personalized care. One way the medical model can do that is by designing more effective clinical trials, like one Kosorok is helping with now.

The Precision Interventions for Severe and/or Exacerbation-Prone Asthma Network by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute was designed with precision medicine as a goal.

“In other studies, it’s often been an afterthought,” said Kosorok, who used his expertise in precision medicine to help design the study.

The clinical trial, which was awarded to Carolina’s Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center in 2017, will enroll 800 adults and children with severe asthma in the coming months.

On this week’s episode, Kosorok explains why he’s excited about precision medicine and how it applies to the PrecISE study on severe asthma.

The term “fake news” skyrocketed in popularity in late 2016, and for many Americans, it’s most closely associated with politics. But according to Alice Marwick, assistant professor in the College of Arts & Science's communications department, the spread of false information isn’t limited to only political headlines.

“You can make a lot of money just by spreading these kinds of viral stories through Facebook,” explained Marwick.

High-traffic pages can sell advertisements to sponsors and reap the financial reward of a false headline.

Marwick explained that sometimes, though, the fake news, which she defines as "problematic information," is created because the writer really believes it to be true. “They have a very strong ideological belief, and they're trying to persuade people to their point of view,” she said.

Marwick and the team at Carolina’s Center for Information, Technology and Public Life are analyzing fake news and other major problems surrounding the dissemination of information.

On this week's episode of Well Said, Marwick’s discusses her research on fake news and shares her tips on how to determine if information is true.

Paul Cuadros has been coaching the soccer team at Jordan-Matthews High School in Siler City for so long that some former players have kids on the current team.

“I feel like I’m sort of their grandfather coach,” said Cuadros, who is also an associate professor in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

When Cuadros first arrived in Siler City in 1999 to report on immigration, there was no soccer program at the school. After coaching in the local soccer league for a couple of years, he launched the high school's program in 2002 and won a state championship in 2004.

Cuadros has used the lessons from creating that program and leading it to a championship in many ways. He wrote a book, “A Home on the Field,” which led to a documentary series produced by Jennifer Lopez.

He’s also been able to see the impact that visibility, leadership and development can have on a community — lessons he’s brought back to campus by creating various organizations for Latinx faculty, staff and students. Those endeavors include the Carolina Latinx Center, which will be opened this year and will hold its official ribbon-cutting on Oct. 4.

“I’m going to feel elated,” Cuadros said of the upcoming ceremony. “We need to have these sorts of institutions to establish ourselves, to have a presence and to develop leadership.”

On this week’s episode, Cuadros explains why he got involved in Siler City and how his involvement there has had an impact on campus.

In late September 2001, current Chapel Hill Fire Chief Matt Sullivan found himself sleeping on a cot in a fire station in Somers, New York — an hour north of Manhattan.

He was there with about 20 other police officers, firefighters and medics from around the country who were providing support to first responders at the World Trade Center.

To wind down every night after 14 hours walking around those city blocks and showing love, care and support to first responders, Sullivan wrote responses to hundreds of kids who wrote in letters to the responders.

“Everybody was hurting,” said Matt Sullivan, who graduated from Carolina in 1989 with a degree in political science and received a master’s degree in social work eight years later. “It wasn’t just the folks who lost somebody in law enforcement and firefighters in New York City. The whole country was hurting.”

Sullivan uses every anniversary of the attacks to ponder those who were and are hurting. Every Sept. 11, he begins this day by climbing the steps at Kenan Stadium. Climbing 2,076 steps — the same number that were in each of the towers — honors the efforts of first responders to fight fires at the World Trade Center and rescue people there.

On this week’s podcast episode, we remember the 9/11 attacks, and Sullivan reflects on his service in New York City. He shares the lessons he learned from the first responders at the World Trade Center and how those lessons apply to his service to the Town of Chapel Hill.

In a special episode of the University's official podcast, we celebrate a historic gift made by Carolina alumnus Walter Hussman Jr. and his family.

Today, the family announced it was donating $25 million dollars to the University's journalism and media school. To recognize the contribution, the school has been renamed the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

With this, the largest single gift ever made to the school, the Hussman School will become the fifth named school at Carolina, joining Kenan-Flagler Business School, Gillings School of Global Public Health, Eshelman School of Pharmacy and Adams School of Dentistry.

Ahead of the gift, Hussman and Susan King, dean of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media, discussed the future of the news industry for an episode of the school's Start Here/Never Stop podcast.

Finance professor Camelia Kuhnen from the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School studies neuroeconomics — a field that combines neuroscience and economics to understand how people make financial decisions.

“I realized that my two degrees – neuroscience and finance – were both about decision-making,” said Kuhnen.

Her research indicates that it’s not only our brains that play a part in why some choose to invest and others do not.

While it is easy to assume that some people may make more risky investments because they have a higher risk tolerance, Kuhnen discovered that there is another factor at play: the environment people grew up in.

“If you experienced adversity growing up, your brain literally reacts differently to information than if you didn’t experience it,” Kuhnen said.

Her research suggests that this causes people to view the world differently, possibly adopting a pessimistic lens around financial investment and ultimately choosing not to invest.

Hear more from Kuhnen about this research as well as the impact it could have on the economy on this week's episode.

As a Chancellor’s Fellow in 2015, Carolina alumna Emily Auerbach turned her examination of the campus’ agricultural potential into reality.

Since then, the Edible Campus initiative has grown to provide free and fresh produce through 11 satellite gardens. It also now provides educational outreach.

“The goal of the program,” said Laura Mindlin, who coordinates Edible Campus through the North Carolina Botanical Garden, “is to foster critical thought, communication and community through food systems.”

On this week’s episode, Mindlin shares how this program applies the growing trend of community gardens to a higher education setting.

A new academic year is upon us at Carolina and the community is welcoming a new group of Tar Heels to campus.

The first official week of the year is called the Week of Welcome, which helps make the transition to college easier for new students.

The week began Aug. 16 when students moved into their new homes in campus residence halls, and it will continue through Aug. 25 with events throughout campus.

On this week’s podcast, we highlight some of the biggest events from the Week of Welcome, including move-in day, New Student Convocation, Sunset Serenade and the first sip at the Old Well

Founded in 1795, the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies are the oldest organizations at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

At 7:30 p.m. every Monday of the academic year, you’ll hear laughter along with serious debate from the Dialectic Chamber of New West Hall. This is the location of the weekly joint senate meetings between the once-feuding Dialectic and Philanthropic societies.

Once a requirement for all Carolina students, the societies have maintained a tradition of lively debate over current issues that span from politics to pop culture.

“We have people talking about political concepts,” said George Gildehaus, former president pro tempore.  “What they're thinking about current events, and we even have people talking about bad Tinder dates and other things of a more relatable nature.”

On this episode of Carolina’s Well Said podcast, Gildehaus and former Joint Senate President Katrina Smith reflect on the evolution of these historical societies since their founding, and how current DiPhi senators maintain the tradition of debate today.

David Braudt, a recent graduate student affiliated with the Carolina Population Center, defended his dissertation in July, and he will start as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Before leaving Chapel Hill, though, he also published research about the social influences of early life mortality, or dying between the ages of 1 and 24.

Braudt’s research was the first such investigation in 22 years. It updates that study and offers a multidimensional approach to family resources. He examined four aspects of family resources, the mother’s education, the father’s education, household income and whether or not each parent was present in the household.

On this week’s episode, Braudt explains the personal connection that drove him to study early life mortality and how he hopes this research will save the lives of children across the country.