Michael Bruce Jarstfer

Michael Bruce Jarstfer is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Graduate Education at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He directs the Pharmaceutical Sciences PhD Program and leads the Jarstfer Lab, focused on telomere biology, anticancer drug discovery, and social behavior pharmacology.

• Education: B.A. in Biochemistry from Trinity University (1992), Ph.D. in Chemistry from University of Utah (1998), Postdoctoral Fellowship under Thomas Cech at University of Colorado (2001)

Research interests include telomerase structure/function, targeting telomere maintenance for cancer therapies, and oxytocin's role in social behavior. Current projects investigate telomerase regulation via caspases, mitochondrial dysfunction links to metabolic syndrome, and small molecule drug development.

Collaborations include work with Nikolay Dokholyan (3D telomerase modeling) and Marschall Runge (metabolic syndrome studies). Lab efforts span biochemistry, structural biology, and pharmacology.