Basic Science News at Duke School of Medicine

How muscle stem cells determine which ones repair injury and which ones resupply the stem cell population.

What people say they’ve eaten and what they’ve actually eaten are often two very different lists of foods. But a new technique using DNA barcoding to identify the plant matter in human feces may get at the truth, improving clinical trials, nutrition studies and more..

Nobel laureate Robert Lefkowitz M.D., the chancellor’s distinguished professor of medicine, is ranked second in the nation and third in the world for Biology and Biochemistry.

Chantell Evans is one of 31 inaugural recipients of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Freeman Hrabowsky Scholarships, a new award of up to $8.6M over 10 years for outstanding early career faculty dedicated to EDI.

Chair Raphael Valdivia, PhD, is overseeing the restructuring of Duke University School of Medicine’s immunology department to reflect the increased importance of immunity and inflammation in all aspects of human health. 

Clare Smith, PhD, assistant professor of molecular genetics and microbiology is the winner of the 2024 Mary Lyon Award and will present an oral presentation at the International Mammalian Genome Conference in Washington, D.C., in 2024. 

David Ashley, PhD, FRACP, MBBS, the Rory David Deutsch Distinguished Professor of Neuro-Oncology and director of the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke, calls his choice to focus his career on brain cancers "a compulsion to defeat this terrible problem."  

Colin Duckett, Vice Dean for Basic Science, led a discussion with premier researchers taking a a closer look at the fundamental biology of Parkinson’s disease during the March 30 Dean’s Distinguished Research Series.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a disease that causes scarring on the lungs. Over time, as more scarring occurs, patients experience decreased lung function and difficulty breathing. Once diagnosed, most patients die within five years. 

Raluca Gordân, PhD, and team investigated how transcription factors may affect the production of genetic mutations, or mutagenesis, by binding to the wrong sites after being exposed to ultraviolet (UV) radiation.