The School of Dentistry will create an endowed professorship with a $333,000 gift from Sunstar Inc., a Japanese manufacturer of oral-, hair- and skin-care products--marking one of the largest gifts ever by a Japanese company to a North Carolina university.
The gift will allow the University to qualify for matching funds of $167,000 from the state's Distinguished Professors Endowment Trust Fund to create a $500,000 endowment for the Sunstar Distinguished Professorship.
"We're very pleased that our University's research partnership with Sunstar has worked so well on both sides and that this highly regarded company will honor the dental school by endowing a distinguished professorship there," said Chancellor Michael Hooker. "The new knowledge that comes out of our association with Sunstar can improve human health worldwide, starting right here in North Carolina."
Sunstar Inc. is one of the largest manufacturers of toothbrushes in the world, with plants in Japan, China and the United States. The company also is active in research and development of products to diagnose and prevent periodontal disease, and that research interest led the company to Carolina's School of Dentistry, said Dean John Stamm.
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