Doris Duke Charitable Foundation

Medical Research Program News

Press releases and publications
from the Medical Research Program

What's New:

DDCF Announces the Appointment of Betsy Myers as Program Director for Medical Research

August 2, 2010
Press Release

 

 

Grantee News

Announcements of honors and awards received by Medical Research Program grantees

What's New:

Distinguished Clinical Scientists Charles Sawyers and Brian Druker Receive 2009 Lasker-Debakey Clinical Research Medical Award

September 2009
Additional Award Information

Grantee Publications

Highlights of scientific papers published by Medical Research Program grantees

What's New:

Distinguished Clinical Scientist Robert Siliciano and Colleagues Develop Novel Method for HIV Latency

Journal of Clinical Investigation – November 2009
Abstract; Bloomberg.com Article

Press releases and publications from the Medical Research Program, organized by program strategy

Clinical Research Career Ladder

DDCF Announces New Grants Totaling Over $13 Million in Support of Clinical Research

July 1, 2010
Press Release

DDCF and Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Announce Partnership to Support Early Career Physician-Scientists

July 1, 2010
Press Release 

DDCF Selects 14 Junior Physician-Scientists to Receive
2009 Clinical Scientist Development Awards

July 28, 2009
Press Release (24 KB PDF)

DDCF Announces Recipients of the 2008 Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award

December 15, 2008
Press Release (25 KB PDF)

DDCF Selects 20 Junior Clinical Scientists to Receive 2008 Clinical Scientist Development Awards Totaling $8.1 Million

September 18, 2008
Press Release (28 KB PDF)

DDCF Awards $9 Million to Continue and Expand the Clinical Research Fellowship Program for Medical Students

October 15, 2007
Press Release (33 KB PDF)

DDCF Selects 17 Junior Physician-Scientists to Receive
2007 Clinical Scientist Development Awards

July 24, 2007
Press Release (35 KB PDF)

DDCF Awards $11.1 Million to Support a New Cohort of Distinguished Clinical Scientists and the Continuation of Three Outstanding Mentoring Programs

December 6, 2006
Press Release (146 KB PDF)

Junior Clinical Researchers Selected to Receive
23 Development Awards Totaling $9.3 Million

July 21, 2006
Press Release (28 KB PDF)

Medical Research Program Staff Publishes
Paper on First Three Years of
Clinical Research Fellowship Program

Journal of Investigative Medicine
March 2005
Full Article

Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Awards $5 Million
to Renew Clinical Research Fellowship Program
at 10 U.S. Medical Schools

December 14, 2004
Press Release (25 KB PDF)

DDCF Selects Four Scientists to Receive
2004 Distinguished Clinical Scientist Awards
Totaling $6 Million

October 28, 2004
Press Release (26 KB PDF)

African Health Research

DDCF Commits $44 Million to Support
Four Partnerships to Strengthen Health Systems
Serving 3.5 Million People in Sub-Saharan Africa

July 31, 2009
Press Release (62 KB PDF)

DDCF African Health Initiative Selects 11 Teams to
Receive Planning Grants for Creating Population Health Implementation and Training (PHIT) Partnerships in
Nine African Countries

October 28, 2008
Press Release (46 KB PDF)

DDCF Announces the Launch of Its New $100 Million
African Health Initiative During the 2007 Annual Meeting
of the Clinton Global Initiative

September 27, 2007

• Press Release (29 KB PDF)
• CGI Commitment Announcement

DDCF Selects Ten Teams to Receive Grants
Totaling $2 Million for Operations Research in Africa

June 1, 2007
Press Release (38 KB PDF)

DDCF Selects Twenty Teams to Receive Grants Totaling
$4 Million for Operations Research on AIDS Care and Treatment in Nine African Countries

February 1, 2006
Press Release (40 KB PDF)

Doris Duke Medical Research Institute Opens at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa

July 28, 2003
Press Release (27 KB PDF)

DDCF Supports the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation’s 2003 International Leadership Awards

June 8, 2003
Press Release (22 KB PDF)

DDCF Awards Two Grants Totaling $3.75 Million to Build Long-Term Clinical Research Capacity in South Africa

June 26, 2002
Press Release (28 KB PDF)

Clinical Research Frontiers

DDCF Announces Five Projects Selected to Receive 2009 Innovation in Clinical Research Awards to Advance Treatments and Cures for Sickle Cell Disease

September 30, 2009
Press Release (55 KB PDF)

Three Multidisciplinary Teams Selected to
Receive Grants Totaling $6.75 Million to Address
Challenging Questions in Human Disease

November 30, 2005
Press Release (35 KB PDF)

DDCF Awards $2 Million to Ten Teams to Develop Point-of-Care Diagnostics and Therapeutic Monitoring Tools for AIDS Patients in Low-Resource Settings

September 23, 2003
Press Release (36 KB PDF)

DDCF Announces Recipients of First Clinical Interfaces Awards for Cross-Disciplinary Research

September 23, 2003
Press Release (36 KB PDF)

Other

DDCF Announces the Appointment of Betsy Myers as Program Director for Medical Research

August 2, 2010
Press Release

DDCF Publishes Report Highlighting
First Ten Years of the Medical Research Program

August 11, 2009
Full Report (1 MB PDF)

The Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Development Award:
A Seven-Year Retrospective and Summary

Chapter reprinted with permission from Enhancing Philanthropy’s Support of Biomedical Scientists: Proceedings of a Workshop on Evaluation © 2006 by the National Academy of Sciences, courtesy of the National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
May 2006
Full Article (146 KB PDF)

The JIM Interview:
Interview with Elaine Gallin, Program Director for Medical Research at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation

Journal of Investigative Medicine
September 2005
Full Article (118 KB PDF)

DDCF Grant to the Public Library of Science Enables Publication Fee to be Waived for DDCF Grantees

November 8, 2004
Press Release (26 KB PDF)

Announcements of honors and awards received by
Medical Research Program grantees, organized
chronologically

Seven Doris Duke Grantees Elected to Institute of Medicine

Distinguished Clinical Scientists Arul Chinnaiyan, Daniel Haber, and Bruce Walker; Clinical Interfaces Awardees Sue Goldie and Douglas Wallace; Clinical Scientist Development Awardee Michael DeBaun; and Operations Research on AIDS Care and Treatment in Africa Awardee Wafaa El-Sadr were elected to the IOM, a prestigious branch of the National Academy of Sciences which selects its members on the basis of their professional achievement and commitment to service.
October 2009
Press Release

 

Distinguished Clinical Scientists Charles Sawyers and Brian Druker Receive 2009 Lasker-Debakey Clinical Research Medical Award

The award recognizes Sawyers' and Druker's work on the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). Their research led to the development of the drugs Gleevec and Spycel, which are now the standard first and second line treatments for patients with CML.
September 2009
Additional Award Information

 

David Bangsberg Appointed Director of Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Global Health

Bangsberg, recipient of an Operations Research on AIDS Care and Treatment in Africa Award and a Clinical Scientist Development Award, will play a primary role in organizing and mobilizing MGH's outreach and capacity in global health care delivery and capacity building, disaster response, professional training and education and research.
September 2009
Additional Information

 

Distinguished Clinical Scientist Charles Sawyers
Receives 2009 Dorothy P. Landon Prize for Translational Cancer Research from the American Association for Cancer Research

May 2009
Additional Award Information

 

Distinguished Clinical Scientist Olufunmilayo Olopade Receives the American Society of Clinical Oncology/ American Cancer Society Award for Pioneering Research in Breast Cancer Genetics

May 2009
Press Release

 Five Doris Duke Grantees Elected to the Association of American Physicians

Distinguished Clinical Scientists David Altshuler, Nina Bhardwaj, Arul Chinnaiyan, David Scheinberg and Clinical Scientist Development Awardee Marshall Horwitz were elected to the Association of American Physicians (AAP), an honorific professional organization dedicated to the pursuit of medical knowledge, the advancement of basic and clinical science, and their application to clinical medicine.
April 2009
Additional Information about the AAP

Distinguished Clinical Scientist Friedhelm Hildebrandt Receives the 2009 Lillian Jean Kaplan International Prize for Advancement in the Understanding of Polycystic Kidney Disease

March 2009
Press Release

Distinguished Clinical Scientist Bruce Walker to Play Major Role in $60 Million Research Initiative to Address HIV and Tuberculosis

Funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the project will operate from a new $20 million research institute at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. It will be integrated with the Doris Duke Medical Research Institute that Walker helped establish with funding from DDCF in 2003.
March 2009
Press Release

Clinical Scientist Development Awardee Tom Wang Leads National Institutes of

Health-Funded Network for Translational Research at University of Michigan

This $6 million grant establishes a Specialized Resource Center in the Network for Translational Research: Optical Imaging in Multimodal Platforms at the university.
December 2008
Press Release

Highlights of scientific papers published by Medical Research Program Grantees, organized chronologically

Luring Dormant HIV Out of Immune-System Cells

Distinguished Clinical Scientist Robert Siliciano and his team of researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have developed a model of HIV latency in cells growing in a laboratory dish. Using this model they tested over 2,000 chemicals, 17 of which made the virus active again and thus susceptible to drugs, with the most effective compound originating from the black walnut tree. This is the first evidence that latent viral stores might be eliminated.

• Journal of Clinical Investigation – November 2009
  Abstract; Bloomberg.com Article
  

Study Identifies Possible New Tumor Suppressor

Clinical Scientist Development Awardee Marshall Horwitz and colleagues identified a new gene mutation in classical Hodgkin lymphoma that is associated with defective cell division. Cells possessing the mutated genes become malignant because they fail to make a critical protein. These results suggest that the missing protein is a new and important tumor suppressor.

• Proceedings of the National Academy of Science – September 2009
  Abstract
  

Study Shows that Earlier Initiation of Antiretroviral Therapy May Be Better for Resource-Limited Areas

Clinical Scientist Development Awardee Rochelle Walensky and Operations Research on AIDS Care and Treatment in Africa Awardee Kenneth Freedberg and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital used a computer-based model of HIV disease to examine the decision of when to initiate antiretroviral therapy (ART) in South Africa. Rapid control of HIV infection is especially important in resource-limited areas like South Africa that have high rates of opportunistic infections such as tuberculosis. The study found that earlier initiation of ART will likely reduce morbidity and mortality, improve long-term survival and be cost effective.

• Annals of Internal Medicine – August 2009
  Abstract; Press Release

Explaining Gender Differences in HIV Progression

Distinguished Clinical Scientist Marcus Altfeld published a study demonstrating gender differences in the progression of HIV. While women usually have lower viral loads than men following acute HIV infection, they progress faster to AIDS than men with similar viral loads. Altfeld and his colleagues have identified a receptor molecule involved in the first-line recognition of HIV that responds differently in women, leading to subsequent differences in chronic T cell activation, a known predictor of disease progression. This finding may help to account for the gender differences in HIV progression and may lead to new therapeutic approaches to limiting HIV-induced pathology.

• Nature Medicine – July 2009
  Abstract; Press Release

Discovery of Biomarker for Age-Related Macular Degeneration Shows Promise for Prevention and Treatment

Distinguished Clinical Scientist Jayakrishna Ambati and his research team at the University of Kentucky have discovered a biological marker for age-related macular degeneration, which affects between 10 and 12 million Americans and is the leading cause of blindness in older adults. The marker shows potential as a means for early detection of the disease as well as for preventive treatment.

• Nature – July 2009
  Abstract; Press Release
  

Researchers Identify Cancer Gene That Can Be Blocked By Blood Pressure Drug

Distinguished Clinical Scientist Arul Chinnaiyan and his team of researchers at the University of Michigan have identified a gene that is over-expressed in up to 20% of breast cancers. The gene, called AGTR1, causes normal breast cells to behave like cancer cells. However, this behavior was reversed in lab experiments by treatment with the blood pressure drug losartan, suggesting that it may be a viable therapy for women with breast tumors over-expressing AGTR1.

• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences –
  June 2009
  Abstract; Press Release
  

First Common Gene Variants Associated with Increased Incidence of Hypertension Identified

Clinical Scientist Development Awardee Christopher Newton-Cheh and a team of researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have identified the first common gene variants associated with an increased incidence of hypertension, which is a risk factor for heart attack, stroke and kidney failure. Analyzing genetic data from almost 30,000 individuals revealed that genes involved in the production of two types of natriuretic peptides were associated with blood pressure levels. Natriuretic peptides are proteins which are known to be produced by the heart when it is stressed. They are currently used to diagnose heart failure, and in the future may be used to diagnose hypertension risk and as a target for drug therapy.

• Nature Genetics – February 2009
  Abstract; Press Release
  

Study Demonstrates Successful Integration of Tuberculosis and HIV Treatment in South Africa

Clinical Scientist Development Awardee Neel Gandhi and Operations Research on AIDS Care and Treatment in Africa Awardee Gerald Friedland and colleagues reported the results of their investigation into the integration of tuberculosis (TB) and HIV treatment in a rural South African region where 80% of TB patients are also infected with HIV. Patients receiving a combination of TB and antiretroviral therapy had high rates of adherence, demonstrating that integrating HIV and TB treatment may result in successful management of both diseases.

• Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome – January 2009
  Abstract

Identification of Gene Mutation Responsible for Deadly Lung Disease May Lead to Drug Therapies

Clinical Scientist Development Awardee Christine Garcia and colleagues at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center have determined that a mutation in a gene known for its role in defending the lungs against invading pathogens is also responsible for some inherited cases of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a lethal lung disease affecting older adults.

• American Journal of Human Genetics - December 2008
  Abstract; Press Release