Meet Physicians and Scientists

Although the term “eating disorders” is fairly common, it’s a bit misleading. That’s according to experts at Duke who say eating disorders are not about eating. Rather, individuals diagnosed with an eating disorder have a disrupted relationship with their bodies, which gets in the way of their ability to live fulfilling lives.

Like a team in a science fiction movie, the six-lab squad funded by a 2017 MEDx Biomedical research grant is striking in its combination of diverse skills and duties.

According to Google Maps, the walking distance between Duke University School of Medicine and the Pratt School of Engineering is 0.8 miles, or about 1,800 steps. You can cover it in less than 15 minutes.

The fortified Toyota Land Cruiser slipped and bounced in the muddy hollows of the rain-drenched Mongolian steppe. The driver, a native Mongolian man named Inka who spoke little English, slowly engineered the vehicle along what just two days earlier was a dusty pair of dirt tracks.

The United States has one of the highest rates of preterm birth—up to 10 percent of all pregnancies—in the world. And many pregnancy complications, such as pre-eclampsia, which contributes to preterm birth, are associated with abnormal placental development.

Small vessel vasculitis—inflammation of the small blood vessels—appears as a stain of tiny, red dots covering the skin that, depending on the severity, can evolve into painful pustules or ulcers.  In some patients, it may even reflect inflammation in internal organs.

Kafui Dzirasa, MD, PhD, , and Cagla Eroglu, PhD, have been named Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigators. HHMI provides its researchers with long-term flexible funding that gives them the freedom to explore and, if necessary, change direction.

People diagnosed with cancer enter a period of intense treatment at a cancer center, and it can seem to their primary care physicians that they have disappeared. The patient’s overall health can suffer as a result. Duke’s new Center for Onco-Primary Care aims to change that.

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.