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Rising rates of hearing loss demand better access to preventions and treatments A team of hearing experts at Duke University School of Medicine and the Duke Global Health Institute is calling for a comprehensive, worldwide initiative to combat hearing loss. The percentage of people worldwide with hearing loss has been on the rise, increasing from 14 percent to 18 percent over the past 25 years. Recent data estimate half a billion people worldwide have moderate to severe hearing losses.

Rising rates of hearing loss demand better access to preventions and treatments A team of hearing experts at Duke University School of Medicine and the Duke Global Health Institute is calling for a comprehensive, worldwide initiative to combat hearing loss. The percentage of people worldwide with hearing loss has been on the rise, increasing from 14 percent to 18 percent over the past 25 years. Recent data estimate half a billion people worldwide have moderate to severe hearing losses.

The finding advances a human vaccine for CMV, which afflicts 1 million babies a year DURHAM, N.C. – Long before the Zika virus became a global fear, cytomegalovirus, or CMV, was commonly infecting developing fetuses and causing many of the same brain and developmental impairments. The virus, one of only a handful known to be transmitted through the mother’s placenta to a fetus, infects nearly 1 million infants a year worldwide and is a leading cause of microcephaly, hearing and/or vision loss, and nervous system damage. 

BETHESDA, MD – The American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) has named Nicholas Katsanis, PhD, Director of the Center for Human Disease Modeling, Professor of Cell Biology, and Brumley Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics at Duke University, as the 2017 recipient of the Curt Stern Award.

Duke School of Medicine student Banafsheh Sharif-Askary received a grant to start the Health, Advocacy and Readiness for Teens (HART) program with partners Bull City Fit and Healthy Lifestyles. The program aims to equip young people with tools and resources to help them lead healthier lives and learn behaviors that will continue into adulthood.

Alejandro Aballay, PhD, professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology and director of the Center for Host Microbial Interactions at Duke University, is a recipient of a prestigious NIH MERIT Award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for his research project on the role of the nervous system in controlling immunity.

Mark Stacy, MD, vice dean for clinical research for the School of Medicine, has accepted a new role as dean of the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, beginning on September 1, 2017.  Dr. Stacy will step down from his position as vice dean at the end of August as he makes his transition to this exciting leadership opportunity.

Mary Klotman, M.D. -- a nationally renowned physician-scientist and academic leader who has served as chair of Duke’s Department of Medicine for almost seven years – has officially assumed her new role as dean of the Duke University School of Medicine and Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs at Duke University. 

Impacting the Lives of Patients through Venture Capital By Aliza Inbari Growing up in a family of physicians, Garheng Kong, MD’01, PhD’00, MBA’03, knew he would continue the family tradition and become a physician like his father, uncles, and cousins. “The joke in my family is that you have to be an MD before you do anything, even if you want to flip hamburgers at McDonald’s,” says Kong, founder and managing partner of HealthQuest Capital.

Duke researchers have discovered a unique repair mechanism in the developing backbone of zebrafish that could give insight into why spinal discs of longer-lived organisms like humans degenerate with age. The repair mechanism apparently protects the fluid-filled cells of the notochord, the precursor of the spine, from mechanical stress as a young fish begins swimming. Notochord cells go on to form the gelatinous center of intervertebral discs, the flat, round cushions wedged between each vertebrae that act as shock absorbers for the spine.