A Celebration of Leadership in Bioscience Education and Advocacy

North Carolina’s latest Nobel Prize-winning scientist, a visionary in the art world and a national medical research champion will honor the accomplishments of the North Carolina Association for Biomedical Research at “A Celebration of Leadership in Bioscience Education and Advocacy,” on Feb. 7 at the North Carolina Museum of Art, in Raleigh.

 

The event, which is closed to the public, will run from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. and will feature a reception and brief program celebrating NCABR and its nearly two decades of achievements in promoting public understanding and support for bioscience research and careers.

 

The event also will honor Karen Hoffman, the association’s founding president, who stepped down from her post in December after 18 years of dedicated service to pursue a second career as an artist.

 

The brief program will begin at 8 p.m. and will feature remarks from Oliver Smithies, Ph.D., a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Excellence professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and 2007 Nobel Prize winner in physiology or medicine. Larry Wheeler, Ph.D., director of the North Carolina Museum of Art, and Mary Woolley, president of Research!America, the nation’s largest nonprofit public education and advocacy alliance, also will participate in the program.

 

NCABR, under the leadership of Karen Hoffman, has established itself over the past 18 years as a state and national leader in providing innovative science education programs to North Carolina’s teachers, students, media and general public. As a result of Ms. Hoffman’s guidance, the association today is an authoritative voice for informing North Carolinians about the vital link between animal research and the quality of human and animal health.

 

“In Karen’s nearly two decades at the helm of NCABR, this association has become an integral part of the state’s educational system, trusted by K-12 teachers needing quality bioscience-related classroom curricula and professional development opportunities set in the research environment,” said Suzanne Wilkison, who became president of NCABR on Jan. 1.

 

“Because of Karen’s guidance, her vision of what public science education should be in our state and her extensive collaboration with NCABR’s members and supporters from the state’s bioscience research community, NCABR has evolved into an organization relied upon today by students curious about bioscience careers and by members of the public interested in issues at the intersection of science and society. Over the past 18 years, NCABR has unified the state’s vast bioscience research enterprise and has become a powerful, steady public voice on behalf of this research community. We at NCABR have our committed members and supporters to thank for this united success, and most importantly, we thank Karen for making these accomplishments a reality.”

 

NCABR, a statewide science education nonprofit founded in 1989, has more than 30 members and supporters, which include all major North Carolina research universities, representatives from the state’s leading bioscience research corporations as well as foundations and state and federal government agencies.