Docampo receives SEC Faculty Achievement Award

Congratulations to Distinguished Research Professor of Cellular Biology and Barbara and Sanford Orkin/Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar Roberto Docampo, who has been named the University of Georgia's recipient of the 2017 Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award:

The award, which is administered by provosts at the 14 universities in the SEC, recognizes professors with outstanding records in teaching and scholarship who serve as role models for students and other faculty members. Winners receive a $5,000 honorarium.

Docampo, a faculty member in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases, is a world-renowned researcher known for his work on neglected parasitic diseases including malaria, Chagas disease and sleeping sickness. He also is credited with the discovery of a novel organelle, the acidocalcisome, conserved from bacteria to human platelets, where it has a role in blood coagulation. His most recent work at UGA includes the successful use of the CRISPR/Cas9 technique to edit the genome of Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that causes Chagas disease. He also has characterized a key signaling pathway in the parasite, which could allow for advances in drugs or vaccines to treat or prevent parasitic diseases.

A senior faculty member with an extensive research track record, Dr. Docampo is one of the great scholar/teachers and we are proud to be his academic home. It is also significant that the SEC continues to recognize and connect its efforts with the faculty members who make the member institutions great.  

Image: Roberto Docampo, courtesy of UGA photo services