Twenty Million Dollars Initiative

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PROMOTING RESILIENCE THROUGH EMERGING CLINICAL AND EVOLVING DETERMINANTS OF EQUITY (PRECEDE) BIOMARKERS

LABORATORY

Blood based biomarkers to be analyzed will be undertaken by Dr. Jessica Gill who is a Professor at Johns Hopkins University. Her laboratory is approximately 1,800 square and is located in the School of Nursing. In her laboratory there are 3 full-time investigators, including a laboratory manager, as well as up to 4 fellows each year. Her lab has all the necessary equipment to function as a molecular biological laboratory, including centrifuges, a biological safety cabinet, balances, freezers and refrigerators.  

Dr. Jessica Gill’s laboratory is a nationally recognized neuroimmunology and traumatic brain injury biomarker laboratory. Studies involving inflammatory biomarkers, neurodegenerative markers (GFAP, NfL, Tau), genomic sequencing, proteomics, and longitudinal follow-up frequently operate under multi-million-dollar federal grants. 

Figure Eight Island was first recorded as part of the Province of North Carolina in 1762, during the reign of George Ill, as a tract in a royal land grant to James Moore Jr., brother of Orton Plantation's Roger Moore. The Moore family held tens of thousands of acres in Brunswick and New Hanover Counties during the colonial period. 

The Moore Family has maintained a continuous presence in North Carolina and along the Atlantic Coast since the mid-eighteenth century, with roots deeply intertwined with the development of the Cape Fear region and the early history of the Province of North Carolina.

Among the most prominent members of the family was Maurice Moore, widely regarded as the patriarch of the Cape Fear branch of the Moore family. Through his leadership, landholdings, and civic influence, he helped establish a legacy that would shape the political, agricultural, and economic development of coastal North Carolina for generations.

His descendants and relatives included Roger Moore, often referred to in historical accounts as “King Roger” of Orton Plantation, whose extensive landholdings and commercial enterprises made him one of the most influential figures in the Lower Cape Fear region. Under the stewardship of the Moore family, Orton Plantation became one of the most significant colonial estates in the American South and remains an enduring symbol of North Carolina’s early history.

The family’s legacy was further advanced by Colonel and General James Moore, one of the Province’s most distinguished military and political leaders. A veteran of colonial military campaigns and an influential statesman, James Moore played a pivotal role in shaping the governance and security of North Carolina during a formative period in its history. 

The Moore family’s contributions extended beyond land stewardship and public service into the highest levels of the American judiciary through Judge Alfred Moore, who was appointed by President John Adams as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. His appointment reflected both his legal acumen and the prominence of the Moore family in the civic life of the young republic.

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, members of the Moore family held substantial land grants, plantations, and commercial interests throughout the Cape Fear region, including holdings associated with Orton Plantation, the Lower Cape Fear River, and portions of the barrier islands along the Atlantic coast. Historical records indicate that Figure Eight Island was first documented in 1762 as part of a royal land grant to James Moore Jr., further illustrating the family’s longstanding connection to the coastal landscape of North Carolina.

For more than two and a half centuries, the Moore Family's history has been closely associated with the stewardship of land, public service, philanthropy,

commerce, and civic leadership.

From the colonial era through the founding of the United States and into the modern age, the family has maintained an enduring presence along the Atlantic seaboard, contributing to the cultural, economic, and historical fabric of North Carolina and the broader American South.