Benjamin Philpot, Ph.D.

Ben Philpot is a Kenan Distinguished Professor in the Neuroscience Center and Department of Cell Biology & Physiology at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. He earned his Ph.D. in psychobiology at the University of Virginia in the laboratory of Peter Brunjes. He performed a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Mark Bear at Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he made important contributions to our understanding of experience-dependent brain development.

Philpot is currently the associate director of the UNC Neuroscience Center and a member of the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, for which he helps direct a cross-disciplinary postdoctoral training grant for neurodevelopmental disorders. His current 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.

Philpot has made key therapeutic discoveries, including developing an approach to unsilence the epigenetically repressed paternal UBE3A allele as a novel treatment strategy for Angelman syndrome. He has authored more than 90 peer-reviewed scientific publications. He has advised prominent biotech and pharmaceutical companies and serves on the scientific advisory committee for the Angelman Syndrome Foundation. He has won multiple awards, including a NARSAD Young Investigator Award from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, a Whitehall Foundation fellowship and the Dr. Claudia Benton Award for Scientific Research from the Angelman Syndrome Foundation.