Chapel Hill, N.C. — Quintiles Transnational Corp. founder Dennis Gillings and his wife have funded four more "innovation laboratories" at the University of North Carolina.

UNC's Gillings School of Global Public Health now has 14 innovation laboratories to study topics like water and the environment, drug safety, statistical genomics and 21st century public health teaching. The labs are designed to help accelerate delivery of real-world solutions for some of the most challenging public health problems.

The four new innovation laboratories will focus on treating hog waste for energy recovery while meeting environmental goals, developing methods and open source software for genetic research, determining the benefits and harms drugs pose for older adults and creating a seamless global classroom.