Ben Philpot, PhD
Kenan Distinguished Professor
Associate Director, UNC Neuroscience Center
Department of Cell Biology & Physiology
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Telephone (office): 919-966-0025
Telephone (lab): 919-966-0031
Website: https://philpotlab.org/
Email: bphilpot@med.unc.edu
Dr. Ben Philpot is a Kenan Distinguished Professor in the Neuroscience Center and Department of Cell Biology & Physiology at the University of North Carolina. He earned his Ph.D. in psychobiology from Dr. Peter Brunjes at the University of Virginia and performed a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Mark Bear at Brown University and M.I.T., where he made important contributions to our understanding of experience-dependent brain development. He is currently the Associate Director of the UNC Neuroscience Center and a member of the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, for which he directs a cross-disciplinary postdoctoral training grant for neurodevelopmental disorders. Dr. Philpot’s research seeks to understand the pathophysiology underlying monogenic neurodevelopmental disorders, and he uses this information to develop small molecule and gene therapies to treat these disorders. His research focuses on early-stage development of treatments for Pitt-Hopkins, Dup15q, and Angelman syndromes. Dr. Philpot has made key therapeutic discoveries, including developing approaches to unsilence the epigenetically-repressed paternal UBE3A allele as a novel treatment strategy for Angelman syndrome. Dr. Philpot has >100 peer-reviewed scientific publications. He has advised prominent biotech and pharmaceutical companies, and he serves on the scientific advisory committee for the Angelman Syndrome Foundation. He has won multiple awards, including the NARSAD Young Investigator Award, a Whitehall Foundation fellowship, the Dr. Claudia Benton Award for Scientific Research, an IMPACT award from the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, and he is currently a SFARI Investigator of the Simons Foundation.