Basic Science News at Duke School of Medicine

When breast cancer spreads to the lining of the brain, survival time for patients is less than six months. Duke University School of Medicine researchers have discovered clues as to how they might stop this dangerous spread.

Duke Science and Technology Scholar Amy Gladfelter, PhD’01, a professor in the Department of Cell Biology, studies extremely large cells, such as that of the human placenta, whose outer layer is one huge cell with billions of nuclei. The insights she’s gaining into these cells’ organization and function sheds important light on cell biology, diseases of pregnancy, and cancer.

Clare Smith, PhD, has been named a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences. This award provides four years of funding to young investigators to explore some of the most pressing questions in human health and medicine.

The National Science Foundation awards $12.5 million grant to Duke researchers and their colleagues to lead pioneering study of polyploidy.

An HIV vaccine candidate developed at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute triggered low levels of an elusive type of broadly neutralizing HIV antibodies among a small group of people enrolled in a 2019 clinical trial.

A team of Duke researchers describe a synthetic molecule that mimics the effects of compounds in the saliva of blood-sucking critters that can also be swiftly reversed, enabling clotting to resume when needed after treatment.

Discovery paves the way for more effective cancer treatments that benefit a larger group of patients.

Two School of Medicine faculty were among five Duke faculty members elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) on April 30 in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. 

New NAS members with appointments in the School of Medicine were:  

• David Beratan, PhD, R.J. Reynolds Professor of Chemistry, professor of biochemistry, and professor of physics. Beratan is developing theoretical approaches to understand the function of complex molecular and macromolecular systems. 

Experimental vaccine targets portions of the flu virus that don’t change