Meet Physicians and Scientists

Yvonne Mowery, MD, PhD, Butler Harris Assistant Professor in Radiation Oncology, is one of many physician-scientists at Duke who credits the Duke University School of Medicine’s Strong Start Program for her career growth.

Breast cancer researcher Donald McDonnell, PhD, met his wife, Mary, in Maine for a week of vaca­tion. Sitting at a secluded inn on Anne’s Point, McDon­nell, Coleader of the Women’s Cancer Research Program at the Duke Cancer Institute, couldn’t stop thinking about what he had heard at a meeting.

Postdoctoral Fellow Binita Chakraborty, PhD was intrigued: in published analyses of large numbers of patients with melanoma (skin cancer) treated with an immunotherapy that is becoming standard of care, the treatment worked better in men than in women.

A surgical team expands the reach of Duke’s cardiovascular care to bring lifesaving treatment to patients with few other options.

We all know that exercise is good for us. But what if doctors could prescribe the precise workout that would help each person beat their cancer?

Researchers and staff at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute and the Duke Regional Biocontainment Laboratory are working around the clock to develop therapies and a vaccine to combat COVID-19.

Researchers at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute are leaders in research aimed at developing vaccines that teach the human immune system to respond to diseases like influenza, HIV, and cytomegalovirus (CMV) which impact hundreds of thousands of people globally. The Immune Resiliency Initiative, which is part of Duke’s larger Science and Technology endeavor, encompasses this work. Duke Human Vaccine Institute is part of the Duke University School of Medicine and Duke Health.

Like a lot of alumni, David N. Howell, learned from a number of influential mentors when he was a student and trainee at Duke. Unlike most, he married his mentor, Sara E. Miller, and together they made a substantial gift to create The Rollie Assistant/Associate Professorship of Correlative Pathology.

National cancer databases provide a ton of valuable information for researchers, but institutional data is often more granular, including details such as specific chemotherapy regimens, radiation doses, treatment durations, and recurrence rates. The Duke Breast Database (DB2), a big data initiative, is invaluable for health researchers like Oluwadamilola “Lola” Fayanju, MD, assistant professor of surgery and the principal investigator for the database.

Heather Whitson, MD, HS’01-’04, takes the reins at the Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development as Harvey Cohen, MD, HS’65-’67, ’69-’71, steps down after almost four decades.