Jeanne Caldwell didn’t have Alzheimer’s disease, yet she knew firsthand the devastation it can cause. For 11 years she cared for her mother who had the disease. After her mother’s death in 2015, Caldwell was determined to do what she could to make sure other families did not have to endure the hardships of caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s.

When James Junker, PhD’80, first came to Duke to pursue a PhD in pathology in the mid 1970s, he was surrounded by esteemed faculty members who were greats in their field. He credits many of them, including Joe Sommer, MD, with influencing his own successful career and for inspiring him to give back to the department that he says gave him so much. 

A portable optical tool that promises to make surgical planning easier and less invasive for children who need surgery for epilepsy will get its first tests in the clinic, thanks to a $300,000 grant from The Hartwell Foundation.

For most cancers, advances in genomics haven’t changed treatment strategies very much. Sandeep Dave, MD, MS, envisions making personalized treatment a reality for more patients, by developing and making better use of tools that already exist.

As a high school freshman, Elianna started baking “cookies” for their horses, using ingredients like oat flour and molasses. “It's so nice to give them something you put effort into, something from the heart," she says.

A family foundation established by the late Dudley Rauch, AB’63, has pledged $30 million to establish an endowment for need-based financial aid for medical students in the Duke University School of Medicine.

An anonymous family’s generosity will enable Duke University School of Medicine to establish one of the nation’s only programs dedicated specifically to helping girls and women with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

The lives of three men were honored recently through a $1.5 million gift to establish the Stewart, Hughes, and Wendt ALS Research Endowment. The endowment supports amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) research at Duke and acknowledges D. Loy Stewart, Larry V. Hughes, and George C. Wendt, three individuals who died of the disease.

The Duke Human Vaccine Institute (DHVI) has been given approval to launch a Phase 1 clinical trial of one of its most promising antibody treatments for COVID-19. This would be a temporary treatment until a vaccine is developed. The DHVI also is developing a pan-coronavirus vaccine that would combat future iterations of COVID-19 and similar viruses, and also researching if saliva can be used as an accurate indicator of COVID-19 infection.

Thom Mayer cheerfully gives back to the school that gave him a chance