Meet Physicians and Scientists

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thanks to the support of philanthropic partners, in 2019 Duke launched the Center for Misophonia & Emotion Regulation, the only center of its kind in the U.S.

Duke Children’s Hospital once again ranked among the top 50 children’s medical centers nationally and retained its position at No. 1 in North Carolina, according to this year’s annual list from U.S. News & World Report.