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The Senate voted 89-4 today to confirm Robert Califf, MD, as the next commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Califf takes over the job from Margaret Hamburg, who left the agency in March. The FDA's chief scientist, Stephen Ostroff, has served as acting commissioner since her departure.

Nancy C. Andrews, MD, PhD, Dean, Duke University School of Medicine, today announced the launch of the new Center for Population Health Sciences in the School of Medicine. The center will be led by Lesley Curtis, PhD, professor in the Department of Medicine and director of the Center for Pragmatic Health Systems Research in the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI).

Duke neuroscientist Kafui Dzirasa is among 106 researchers named Thursday by President Barack Obama to receive the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

Invoking the aspirational spirit that put U.S. astronauts on the moon, Vice President Joe Biden visited Duke Health today as part of the national “Moonshot” initiative he is leading to advance cancer research.

The first large U.S. study aimed at resolving an ongoing debate about the best way to treat an early sign of breast cancer will launch later this year under the direction of a Duke Cancer Institute investigator. The study, entitled COMET (Comparison of Operative to Medical Endocrine Therapy) for low-risk ductal carcinoma in situ, received funding through a $13.4 million, five-year award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), an independent, nonprofit organization authorized by Congress in 2010 to support research that enlightens health care decisions.

‘Unsung heroes’ support research, including Nobel Prize winners For years, Juliette Lee knew Dr. Paul Modrich as a very meticulous man, focused on details of his decades-long research about how mistakes in DNA code are repaired.  Then last October, she knew Modrich as aNobel Prize winner. Still, the one title that didn’t change in six years of their relationship is “principal investigator,” which Lee uses to refer to Modrich, the doctor who benefits from Lee’s behind-the-scenes work as a research administrator.

The Duke University School of Medicine is one of only ten institutions nationwide to receive a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) through its inaugural Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists. Each school will receive $540,000 over five years. The grant, designed to bolster the long-term careers of young physician-scientists, will be administered at Duke by Vice Dean for Faculty Ann Brown, MD, MHS. Read More

New research from Duke University reveals how three proteins work in concert to wire up a specific area of the developing brain that is responsible for processing sensory information.  The findings, published in the Jan. 14 issue of the journal Cell, may also lend insight into brain disorders including autism, depression and addiction, because previous research has linked these proteins individually to those diseases. Read More

      Starting today, Duke Medicine begins a transition to a new name: Duke Health. 

Erich Jarvis on how the discoveries we make are influenced by our cultural experience​ Neurobiologist Erich Jarvis received the 2015 Ernest Everett Just Award from the American Society for Cell Biology to recognize his outstanding scientific achievements as a minority scientist. Jarvis, who is also an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, delivered an essay at the ASCB meeting in San Diego in December.