UNC Charlotte honored its top-funded researchers at the annual Leaders in Research reception, held at Bissell House on March 19. The event recognized the newest members of the University’s Million Dollar Research Circle, a high-impact group of faculty who each lead a minimum of $1 million in active external funding.

This year, 51 principal investigators were recognized for annual year 2025, representing disciplines across campus. The Klein College of Science led all colleges with the highest number of researchers achieving this milestone, underscoring its growing impact in scientific discovery and innovation.

“Klein College of Science faculty continue to push the boundaries of discovery, and their momentum is reshaping what’s possible for our students and for the region we serve,” said Bernadette Donovan-Merkert, dean of the Klein College. “Their success in securing major research funding reflects the strength of their scholarship. I’m thrilled for what lies ahead as we continue expanding our impact on research, teaching, and the broader community.”

The Million Dollar Research Circle highlights faculty whose work advances solutions to real‑world challenges while supporting student research experiences and strengthening UNC Charlotte’s Carnegie R1 standing. In addition to principal investigators, 42 co‑principal investigators were recognized for their contributions to large, collaborative research initiatives.

KCOS researchers inducted this year represent fields spanning chemistry, biological sciences, and physics and optical science. Their work contributes significantly to the University’s $248 million active award portfolio.

KCOS Million Dollar Researchers:

• Kirill Afonin, Chemistry
• Ishwar Aggarwal, physics and optical science
• Christopher Bejger, chemistry
• Shunji Egusa, physics and optical science
• Jay Foley, chemistry
• Kristen Funk, biological sciences
• Thomas Hutchens, physics and optical science
• Ian Marriott, biological sciences
• Adam Reitzel, biological sciences
• Bao-Hua Song, biological sciences
• Andrew Truman, biological sciences
• Patricija van Oosten-Hawle, biological sciences
• Juan Luis Vivero-Escoto, chemistry
• Michael Walter, chemistry
• Shan Yan, biological sciences

UNC Charlotte also recognized the contributions of co-PIs as vital members of the research teams.

Co-Investigators from Klein College

• Kathryn Asala, chemistry
• Banita Brown, chemistry
• Anthony Fernandes, mathematics and statistics
• Thomas Hutchens, physics and optical science
• Brittany Johnson, biological sciences
• Stanley Schneider, biological sciences, emeritus

KCOS continues to play a central role in advancing UNC Charlotte’s research enterprise, contributing to major discoveries, interdisciplinary collaborations, and the training of the next generation of scientists.

Pinku Mukherjee and Matthew W. Parrow have been named to the 2026 Class of Senior Members of the National Academy of Inventors, a recognition honoring academic inventors whose work has made a measurable impact through patents, commercialization and mentorship.

“The induction of these faculty members is an extraordinary achievement and a powerful recognition of the University’s growing influence in innovation and technology commercialization,” said Laura Peter, executive director of intellectual property and technology transfer.

Translating life science discovery into societal benefit

Pinku Mukherjee, Irwin Belk Distinguished Professor of Cancer Research, is recognized for translational oncology research spanning tumor immunology, biomarker discovery and therapeutic development.

She is the sole inventor of the OncoTAb antibody, which led to early‑detection blood tests for breast cancer and the founding of OncoTAb, Inc. Pinku’s contributions earned the O. Max Gardner Award, the UNC Board of Governors’ highest faculty honor.

Matthew W. Parrow, professor of biological sciences and associate dean for academic administration in the Klein College of Science, advances microbiology and biotechnology solutions for environmental and public health challenges.

He is co‑inventor on a U.S. patent for lignocellulosic treatments supporting sustainable biomass use. Parrow’s collaboration with Kyoung Hee Kim on a microalgae‑based biochromic window system earned a 2021 Architect Magazine R+D Award and is already installed in test form on campus. He has also served on the University’s Faculty Patent Committee for more than five years.

National recognition, lasting impact

The 2026 class of NAI Senior Members includes 230 inventors from 82 institutions worldwide, the largest cohort in program history. Senior Members will be inducted at NAI’s 15th Annual Conference, June 1-4, in Los Angeles.

UNC Charlotte’s first inductees were in the 2025 class, with five faculty named Senior Members from the Klein College of Science.

Three other Charlotte faculty members were also named to the 2026 class, including Sukumar Kamalasadan, Duke Energy Distinguished Professor of Electric Power Engineering; Babak Parkhideh, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering; and Kyoung Hee Kim, professor of architecture and director of the Integrated Design Research Lab.

In the microscopic world inside a stem cell, some of the most important decisions about life’s earliest stages come down to only a handful of molecules. A new study from UNC Charlotte shows that just three molecules of a rare protein can spark the formation of massive gene‑silencing structures, helping cells choose what they will ultimately become.

The work, published in Molecular Cell, comes from the lab of Xiaojun Ren, associate professor and Irwin Belk Distinguished Scholar of Biology. Ren has spent years trying to understand how Polycomb proteins, which are key regulators of cell identity, organize the genome. The problem: some of these proteins are so scarce that traditional tools simply cannot detect them.

A rare protein with an outsized influence

Stem cells can turn into anything: a brain cell, a muscle fiber, a blood cell, or anything the protein tells them to be. Polycomb complexes are essential for keeping certain genes switched off so cells can specialize. But scientists have long puzzled over how these complexes assemble into the large, droplet‑like “condensates” that silence genes across the genome.

Ren’s team cracked the mystery using an ultra‑sensitive live-cell single‑molecule microscope, technology that is not available at many labs worldwide. The instrument allows researchers to count individual proteins inside living cells, one molecule at a time.

With this imaging technology, the team made a surprising discovery: In mouse embryonic stem cells, Polycomb condensates form around a tiny core of just three molecules of a protein called CBX2.

“It’s remarkable,” Ren said. “CBX2 is one of the least abundant Polycomb proteins in stem cells, yet it can dictate the assembly of these large regulatory structures and act as a seed for the entire condensate. CBX2 is doing far more with far less than anyone expected.”

Those three molecules act like the first bubbles in a pot of boiling water — small, fleeting, but powerful enough to trigger a cascade. As more components join in, the bubbles merge into a single, larger droplet. In the same way, CBX2’s tiny clusters recruit additional Polycomb complexes, gradually building the gene‑repressive hubs that shape the epigenome.

Why this matters

Polycomb dysfunction is linked to developmental disorders and cancers. By revealing how condensates form — and just how fragile that process can be — the study offers a new lens for understanding how gene‑silencing programs are built, maintained and sometimes derailed.

It also underscores the power of cutting‑edge imaging technologies. Without UNC Charlotte’s ultra‑sensitive single‑molecule microscope, these three‑molecule “seeds” would have remained invisible.

Ren’s lab plans to continue exploring how condensates change as cells mature and how disruptions to these early molecular events might contribute to disease.

In the vast ocean of the cell, finding three molecules may seem impossible. The microscope, in the capable hands of the Ren lab and their research team, uncovered how molecules can reveal how life organizes itself from the ground up.

How three molecules reshape the genome

Once Ren’s team realized that tiny CBX2 clusters could act as “starter bubbles” for gene‑silencing droplets, they dug deeper into what those bubbles actually do. They found that these little clusters act like magnets, attracting other components. Even though CBX2 is one of the rarest proteins in the cell, its small groups are powerful enough to pull in other major players in the Polycomb system: proteins that help shut down genes so a cell can stay on the right developmental path.

Together, these proteins form busy control hubs that help determine which genes remain silent. And CBX2, despite being scarce, plays a surprisingly central role in steering where these silencing marks land across the genome.

To understand how CBX2 guides this process, the team looked across the entire genome. They found that CBX2 tends to settle at the very spots where gene‑silencing marks first begin to form. When the researchers removed CBX2, those marks and the proteins that place them wandered to the wrong locations. The result was a weakening of gene repression at some of the most important developmental genes.

As stem cells begin to specialize, the droplets grow and change with the cell’s identity. For example, early neural cells contain about 15 CBX2 molecules in each droplet, which is five times more than in embryonic stem cells. This is a sign that as cells choose their future, they also rebuild the machinery that keeps certain genes turned off.

In other words, without CBX2 acting as the tiny spark that starts the whole process, the cell’s gene‑silencing system loses its map.

A mutant that reveals CBX2’s true power

To understand just how important CBX2’s “clustering” ability is, Ren’s team created a special version of the protein that was missing this one feature. Think of it as CBX2 with its hands tied: it could still latch onto DNA, but it was unable to link arms with other CBX2 molecules the way the normal protein does.

What happened next made the answer clear.

Inside living cells, the altered CBX2 could not form the tiny starter clusters that kick off condensate formation. In lab tests, it required more than 100 times the usual amount of protein before it even began to clump. And without those early clusters, the cell’s gene‑silencing marks drifted to the wrong places, piling up in dense stretches of DNA instead of the regions they are meant to regulate.

The ripple effects were striking. When the team encouraged the cells to start becoming specialized cell types, the ones carrying the altered CBX2 struggled. Their early embryonic structures barely grew. They had trouble producing neural precursor cells. And the number of cells showing key markers of neural identity dropped sharply.

“Without CBX2’s ability to self‑cluster, the cells simply cannot execute their developmental programs,” Ren said. “Just as a raindrop needs a tiny speck of dust to form in a humid sky, these three molecules act as the seeds that pull the cell’s Polycomb proteins together into a functional droplet.”

A new way to think about how these droplets form

For years, scientists assumed that Polycomb condensates formed the same way oil droplets separate from water — a classic process called liquid‑liquid phase separation. But Ren’s team found that this old model does not hold up. With only about three molecules of CBX2 at the center of each condensate in stem cells, there simply are not enough molecules to form the dense networks that traditional phase separation requires.

Instead, the researchers propose a new explanation. In their model, CBX2 acts like the first tiny grain around which everything else gathers. It attaches to specific spots on the genome, creating a small landing pad. That pad then attracts other Polycomb proteins, which help bridge nearby stretches of DNA. As more proteins join in, the structure grows — much like small bubbles merging into a larger droplet.

This new framework helps explain how a protein that’s incredibly rare can still organize huge stretches of the genome. It also brings together years of scattered observations into a single, coherent picture of how gene‑silencing structures take shape inside living cells.

More about the Ren lab

The Ren laboratory relocated to UNC Charlotte in the summer of 2024 and focuses on epigenetic mechanisms, genome organization, single-molecule imaging, liquid-liquid phase separation and Polycomb proteins. Their work is supported in part by grants from NIH R01GM135286, and funds from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Ren was previously an associate professor at the University of Colorado Denver, so this research was in part supported by CU Denver prior to this move.

Photos by Kat Lawrence. Molecular images courtesy of the Ren lab.

The UNC Charlotte Alumni Association celebrated Robyn Massey ’81 with the Dr. Gregory Davis Visionary Leadership Award during the 2026 Alumni Awards ceremony held on Friday, Feb. 27. She was honored for her decades of leadership in technology, community service and University advocacy.

Massey, who earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from what is now the Klein College of Science, built a career marked by innovation and impact. Over more than 30 years at IBM and Microsoft, she led major business transformation initiatives and earned top corporate honors, including IBM’s Golden Circle Award. Her expertise in using technology to advance social good led to her selection for the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge in Durban, South Africa, where she advised civic leaders on economic development strategies.

Her commitment to UNC Charlotte has been equally influential. Massey helped establish the Black Alumni Chapter and served on the Alumni Association Board of Directors, including two years as president. She was a founding member of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Advisory Council and completed three terms on the UNC Charlotte Foundation Board, strengthening the University’s reach and resources.

Beyond campus, Massey has long championed organizations supporting women, children and emerging leaders. She has served with the Girl Scouts, the Junior League of Charlotte, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, and The Society, Incorporated — Greater Charlotte Chapter. She also contributes her expertise as a board member for City Startup Labs and as part of the New Generation of African American Philanthropists. She holds an MBA from Wake Forest University.

Massey was honored alongside three other alumni whose achievements reflect the University’s growing influence across the region and beyond.

UNC Charlotte’s Botanical Gardens were featured in the article, “If You Are Visiting North Carolina This Stunning Botanical Garden Is An Absolute Must See,” by Positive Bloom.

The Gardens, as part of the Klein College of Science, host three garden sites with sixteen collections, including the rare Titan Arum, also known as a corpse flower.

“Right on the UNC Charlotte campus, you can explore a remarkable collection of plants from around the world without paying a single penny,” the article states. “The botanical gardens function as living classrooms where researchers study plant biology and students learn hands-on horticultural skills. Visitors wander through carefully curated displays that showcase everything from regional favorites to exotic specimens.”

The Botanical Gardens also host regular plant sales, with the 2026 Spring Plant Sale coming up soon. Early access begins on Thursday, April 9, 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. for students, faculty, staff and Members of the Gardens. The plant sale will be open to the public on Friday, April 10, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturday, April 11, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Read the full article.

Learn more about the upcoming Spring Plant Sale.

Check out the most recent Titan Arum, Cadavera, which bloomed in October.

Established in 1949 and presented annually by the UNC System, the O. Max Gardner Award honors a faculty member who has made “the greatest contribution to the welfare of the human race” during the current academic year. It is the system’s highest faculty honor, and nominees may come from any of its 17 institutions.

Jordan Poler, professor of chemistry in the Klein College of Science, is this year’s nominee from UNC Charlotte. Poler leads pioneering work to expand access to clean, drinkable water for communities in North Carolina and around the world. Backed by a 2024 North Carolina Innovation Grant, he is developing long‑term partnerships between UNC Charlotte and industry to advance water‑purification technologies and create new internship pathways for students.

A member of the chemistry faculty for three decades, Poler is recognized as an outstanding educator, researcher and mentor. He has twice been a finalist for the UNC Charlotte Award for Teaching Excellence, the University’s top teaching honor.

His research includes developing methods to remove per‑ and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS — commonly known as “forever chemicals” — from water. These chemicals are widespread across the state and the nation and appear in products ranging from food packaging and cosmetics to stain‑resistant fabrics and nonstick coatings.

The UNC Board of Governors will select the 2026 recipient later this semester.

Mukulika Bose ’22 Ph.D. and Jeffrey Powell ’18 M.S., proud alumni of the Klein College of Science, are recipients of UNC Charlotte’s 2025 10 Under Ten Awards.

Each year, the UNC Charlotte GOLD Alumni Network selects ten graduates who exemplify the University’s mission through their achievements, volunteerism and philanthropic impact.

The celebration, held Thursday, Feb. 19 in the Popp Martin Student Union, recognized ten exceptional graduates from the past decade who demonstrate professional excellence, leadership and a commitment to service.

Mukulika Bose ’22 Ph.D. 

Bose is a research investigator at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. A cancer biologist with more than a decade of translational research experience, she studies tumor heterogeneity, metastasis and therapy resistance using patient‑derived models and advanced single‑cell imaging. At MD Anderson, Bose leads NIH‑ and DOD‑funded precision oncology projects, working closely with clinicians and multidisciplinary teams to bridge laboratory discovery with meaningful clinical impact.

Originally from Kolkata, India, Bose is a first‑generation scientist who graduated at the top of her class, earning national honors and competitive research fellowships.

At UNC Charlotte, she was a member of Pinku Mukherjee’s lab and became the University’s first recipient of the Phi Kappa Phi National Dissertation Fellowship. Bose completed her Ph.D. in biological sciences with eight first‑author publications.

Jeffrey Powell ’18 M.S. 

Powell is the founder and president of The Helping Hand Project, a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to supporting children with limb differences.

In 2017, he came to UNC Charlotte, where he partnered with Richard Chi, associate professor of biological sciences, and David Wilson, professor of software and information systems, to establish a new student chapter of the organization. The chapter focuses on designing and producing 3D-printed prosthetic arms and hands for children, often tailored to their favorite superheroes or personal interests. 

During his time at UNC Charlotte, Powell earned his master’s degree in biology, which helped pave the way for his acceptance to medical school at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He is now training to become a vitreoretinal surgeon. 

2025 10 Under Ten Honorees

• Bilkis Banu ’21 Ph.D., William States Lee College of Engineering
• Mukulika Bose ’22 Ph.D., Klein College of Science 
• Kalin Devone ’15, College of Arts + Architecture 
• Taylor Faulkner ’19, Cato College of Education 
• Kaitlyn Linscheid ’20, College of Arts + Architecture
• Austin McNeill ’18, Belk College of Business 
• Nkosi Muse ’17, College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences
• Jeffrey  Powell ’18 M.S., Klein College of Science
• Fernando Mayoral Ramírez ’18 MBA, Belk College of Business 
• C. Emmanuel Wright ’21, College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences 

A new study from UNC Charlotte’s Truman Lab has been published in Nature Communications, offering a deeper understanding of how cells respond to heat-induced stress.

The paper, “Mechanosensor-mediated Hsp70 phosphorylation orchestrates the landscape of the heat shock response,” examines a novel key regulatory mechanism that rapidly activates the cellular defense to heat shock.

“This study reveals a fast ‘first step’ in the heat shock response. Instead of waiting for widespread protein damage, cells can sense heat-induced membrane stretch and rapidly modify Hsp70, allowing the cell to launch a coordinated protective program within minutes,” said Andrew Truman, Ph.D., the Truman Lab’s principal investigator, professor of biological sciences and associate chair for research in the Klein College of Science.

From Ph.D. Research to Publication

The article’s first author, Siddhi Omkar, Ph.D., began the project in 2020 as part of her doctoral research in the Truman Lab.

Data generated through Omkar’s research contributed significantly to the lab’s 2024 $1.28 million grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Omkar defended her thesis in November 2024, just months after the birth of her son, before returning to the lab as a postdoctoral researcher. The team submitted the manuscript to Nature Communications in January 2025, and after peer review and revisions, it was accepted in November 2025.

A Cellular ‘Emergency Response Center’

The research team discovered that a single phosphorylation event on the Hsp70 protein functions like a 911 call, triggering multiple protective pathways within minutes of heat shock. 

“I compare it to a city emergency department,” Omkar explained. “You receive a phone call about an emergency, and suddenly a number of other departments start working together. One single phosphorylation or one single PTM controls a number of different fundamental events inside the cell, all coordinating to help the cell protect itself from the heat.”

Decoding the ‘Chaperone Code’

The Truman Lab studies Hsp70, which is found in nearly all forms of life from bacteria to humans. Hsp70 works like a mechanic, making sure proteins fold into the right shapes and do not clump together. It also helps cells deal with proteins that are damaged, either by helping fix them or by directing them to be broken down and recycled.

This is important because Hsp70 can influence disease in more than one way. Many cancer cells depend on Hsp70 to help stressed or altered proteins keep working, which can support tumor growth.

In contrast, in brain diseases like Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s and ALS, Hsp70 can help reduce the buildup of harmful protein clumps that damage cells. Which effect you see depends on the type of cell and which proteins Hsp70 is working on.

A major focus of the lab is understanding how small chemical “tags” (Post-translational modifications or PTMs) added to Hsp70 act like control switches that change how it behaves. The lab calls this collection of tags the Chaperone Code. By learning how these switches tune Hsp70, the Truman Lab aims to reveal new ways to understand disease and potentially guide future treatments.

Understanding Heat Stress Responses

During her Ph.D., Omkar set out to address a fundamental question in biology: How do cells respond so rapidly to heat stress?

Her findings reveal how the Chaperone Code fine‑tunes proteostasis, which is the delicate balance of protein folding, stability and degradation. Together, the results present a unified model of the global heat shock response in yeast, governed by Hsp70‑mediated signaling.

Future Implications

Because protein misfolding underlies many cancers and neurodegenerative diseases, the work may have broad biomedical impacts.

“This particular site is also known to be mutated in cancer, which makes it much more interesting,” Omkar said. “We can use this as a targeted cancer therapy, which is just one very important implication.”

Omkar plans to continue her postdoctoral work in the Truman Lab for a few years before moving into industry.

“Right now I am focusing on other sites and other chaperone codes that are of interest to me,” she said. “Eventually I would like to transition into industry to do something that is related to disease or clinical-level research.” 

Collaborative Science

This project was made possible due to extensive internal and external partnerships, with special thanks to the UNC Charlotte Division of Research and the Klein College of Science.

The research team collaborated within the Klein College of Science and beyond. Richard Chi and James (Trey) Grissom in UNC Charlotte’s Chi Lab contributed microscopy expertise, Luca Fornelli and Jake Kline at the University of Oklahoma supported mass spectrometry and proteomics and Diyun Sun and Jared Bard from the Bard Lab at Texas A&M University assisted with protein translation research.

“Looking back from starting this project in 2020 to seeing it published, it’s been an amazing journey with many personal and professional milestones along the way,” said Omkar. “I am incredibly thankful for Dr. Truman’s mentorship, my colleagues in the Truman Lab for their support, and my family’s unwavering encouragement throughout. Our collaborators were instrumental in advancing this research, and I’m excited to continue building on this foundation.”

Klein College of Science (KCOS) faculty members were recently featured in the Niner Times article, “UNC Charlotte marks 1 year as R1 institution with research growth and innovation.”

As of Feb. 13, UNC Charlotte has officially celebrated one year as a Research 1 (R1) institution. According to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, R1 universities must invest at least $50 million annually in research and award a minimum of 70 research doctorates. According to the Niner Times, UNC Charlotte far surpassed those benchmarks, spending approximately $92 million on research and awarding 160 doctoral degrees in 2023.

Adam Reitzel, Ph.D., professor of biology and associate dean of research and graduate education, served on the R1 commission that helped guide the University toward achieving this milestone.

“We spent about a year on this R1 commission, which is now called the top-tier research commission, which was looking at UNC Charlotte. We said we’re doing a lot of really good things here in research,” said Reitzel. “They pulled faculty from across the campus, as well as administrators, to start looking at what our strengths are as a university, and how we can make rapid progress in transitioning from an R2, which the University has been for a long time, to R1.”

With the momentum and support from the R1 designation, KCOS students and faculty are advancing their research in new and ambitious ways, particularly in technology and artificial intelligence.

One example highlighted by the Niner Times is the groundbreaking work in gene therapy that led to the development of AI‑Cell, a project more than a decade in the making.

“The predictive capacity of AI-Cell is just going to increase,” said Kirill Afonin, Ph.D., professor of chemistry. “It’s very, very promising, but there’s more work to do for sure. It’s also very exciting because our team will continue working on it. There are still a lot of questions to answer.”

Read the full article.

Find out more about the research taking place in the Klein College of Science.

Rosario Porras-Aguilar, associate professor of physics and optical science, has been awarded a grant from NCInnovation to assist with bringing her research in advanced microscopy to commercial market. The grant, totaling nearly one million dollars, marks the sixth award at UNC Charlotte from NCInnovation, with four of the grants belonging to researchers in the Klein College of Science.

The new imaging techniques in the Porras-Aguilar lab are enabling faster, less expensive and more precise microscopic imaging for a variety of applications, including medical and pharmaceutical, life sciences and materials research. The tool being developed by the team in the Porras-Aguilar lab can turn a standard microscope into an advanced 4D imaging system that can capture a sample’s depth, movement and structural changes in real time.

In 2021, Porras-Aguilar earned a National Science Foundation Career Award and was named a Cottrell Scholar by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. In 2023 she was elected a Senior Member of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, and has also received numerous awards from SPIE for community outreach.