Magnify Magazine

This article first appeared in the DukeMed Alumni News Fall 2020 issue.

Last spring, when Prince Boadi accepted an offer to attend Duke University School of Medicine starting in the fall of 2020, he knew the experience—leaving his family and friends in Chicago, learning his way around Durham, meeting new people, and taking on the rigors of medical school—would be different from anything else he’d ever done.

When the novel coronavirus began to spread across China, researchers at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute (DHVI) sprang into action and they haven’t slowed down since. They are collaborating with each other and with other institutions to unlock the secrets of the virus that causes COVID-19 and to develop tests, vaccines, and treatments.

New studies are underway at Duke to test treatments that could help people with COVID-19 recover faster and avoid being hospitalized.

“The goal of interventional outpatient studies is to see if we can prevent people from developing more severe COVID disease requiring hospitalization,” says Susanna Naggie, MD, associate professor of medicine (Infectious Diseases) and vice dean for clinical research in the Duke University School of Medicine.