The internet, pervasive social media, and round-the-clock news sites have put a world’s worth of knowledge literally at our fingertips: with a click or two you can summon vast amounts of information about almost anything. Unfortunately, a lot of it is wrong. Duke researchers are working to combat false health claims.

Erich Huang, PhD’02, MD’03, HS’03-’08, is head of clinical informatics at Verily, formerly Google Life Sciences. He has been a pathfinder since transitioning in 2016 from clinical care to biomedical informatics and later directing Duke Forge, an initiative to build a data science culture and infrastructure focused on actionable health data science across Duke University. In 2020 he was selected as Duke Health’s Chief Data Officer for Quality. Now the head of clinical informatics at Verily, formerly Google Life Sciences, his vision for the health care landscape remains centered on wielding artificial intelligence as a tool, not a replacement for the human touch.

William Stead, AB’70, MD’74, HS’73-’77, is the McKesson Foundation Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Medicine at Vanderbilt University and is one of the founders of the field of biomedical informatics. In the 1970s, first as a medical student and then while a nephrology fellow and member of the faculty at Duke, Stead worked with Ed Hammond, BSEE’57, PhD’67, director of the Duke Center for Health Informatics, and others to build The Medical Record, one of the first practical electronic medical record systems.

Rosalyn “Roz” Bernstein Mannon, MD’85, HS’85-’90, professor of medicine, pathology, and microbiology and vice-chair for research in the Department of Medicine at the University of Nebraska, says more research is needed to understand how sex and gender affect transplant immunology, access, and outcomes. As past chair of Women in Transplantation, she has helped programs to fund such research internationally and to advocate for women in transplant around the world.

David Axelrod, professor of surgery and surgical director of kidney/pancreas and living donor transplant at the University of Iowa, explores the intersection of economics and medicine. Solid organ transplantation, he says, poses a unique set of complex challenges not only medically but also in terms of cost of care, organ allocation, and access to services.

Robert J. Lefkowitz, MD is the Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Medicine and a professor of biochemistry, pathology, and chemistry at Duke University School of Medicine. He is also a basic research cardiologist at the Duke Heart Center and a member of the Duke Cancer Institute. He has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator since 1976 and has spent most of his 50-year research career at Duke.

In 2022, Kurt D. Newman, MD’78 retired as president and chief executive officer of Children’s National Hospital, after a nearly 40 year career there. During his 11 years as CEO, the hospital soared from No. 18 to No. 5 in the nation in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Children’s Hospital annual rankings, with neonatology maintaining the No. 1 spot for six consecutive years. 

Mary Louise Markert, PhD’81, MD'82, HS’82-’84, ’84-’87, is professor emeritus of pediatrics in the Division of Allergy and Immunology and professor emeritus of immunology at Duke University School of Medicine.

Kevin O. Saunders, PhD’10, is an associate professor in surgery, molecular genetics and microbiology, and in immunology. He is the faculty chairperson for the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee and associate director of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute (DHVI).

Kanecia Zimmerman, MD’07, HS’07-’11, 12-’15, PhD, MPH, is an associate professor of pediatrics in the Division of Critical Care Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at Duke University School of Medicine.