Cohen named 'Tar Heel of the Year' by News and Observer

Dr. Myron Cohen

Myron Cohen, MD, professor of epidemiology at Gillings School of Global Public Health at The University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, has been named one of two “Tar Heels of the Year” by the Raleigh (N.C.) News and Observer.

Cohen, who also is J. Herbert Bate Distinguished Professor of medicine, microbiology and immunology in UNC’s School of Medicine and the university’s associate vice chancellor for global health, was honored for his extensive research in AIDS prevention and treatment, particularly for a landmark study that showed treatment with antiretroviral therapy renders people with HIV virtually non-contagious and reduces sexual transmission of the virus by 96 percent.

Cohen’s fellow “Tar Heel of the Year” awardee is Robert Lefkowitz, MD, James B. Duke Professor of biochemistry at Duke University and Duke’s first winner of the Nobel Prize (for chemistry, in 2012). The News and Observer called both men “brilliant scholars who take big risks… [whose] reach is international but [whose] work is rooted locally at Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill.”

The newspaper’s profile on Cohen is available online.