Duke University visits Chapel Hill tonight to play the University of North Carolina in a men’s college basketball matchup that will keep at least two-thirds of Research Triangle basketball fans riveted tonight.Even basketball observers outside of the Triangle call it the biggest rivalry in sports, or at least in college basketball. But the longtime rivals [...]

The prostate cancer test to confirm a diagnosis is an uncomfortable medical procedure with an equally awkward name — the transrectal biopsy. This intrusive test uses an ultrasound probe and needle to retrieve a tissue sample for analysis. Even when the biopsy causes no pain, it sparks plenty of patient anxiety.Duke University researchers have come [...]

AIDS research efforts at Duke University have landed three grants totaling $37.2 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.The grants will fund Duke University Medical Center HIV work in the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD) program, an international network of scientists working to bring new HIV vaccine candidates into clinical trials. The CAVD [...]

Duke University is partnering with the North Carolina Research Campus in an expansion of an Alzheimer’s disease study that aims to find new ways to predict and treat the disease.Research initially began in 2007 to study disease patterns over the long term for patients in the city of Kannapolis, North Carolina, where the N.C. Research Campus is based, as well as surrounding Cabarrus County. Researchers are expanding the “Measurement to Understand the Reclassification of Disease of Cabarrus/Kannapolis” or MURDOCK study to include participants 55 and older who have not been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and live in outlying areas surrounding Cabarrus County.

Duke University Medical Center is working with Durham County, North Carolina to map diabetes in the community in a new health IT effort to track and manage the disease.Duke and the Durham County Department of Health and Human Services will receive $6.25 million over five years to develop and implement programs to help people manage [...]

Duke University Medical Center has been awarded a $25 million federal grant to research epilepsy in an effort to understand its genetic roots and develop new treatments for the disorder.The National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, a part of the National Institutes of Health, funded the grant as part of its “Center Without Walls” [...]

Duke University is partnering with Verizon (NYSE:VZ) in a health IT initiative pursuing technologies intended to improve care, expand healthcare access and lower costs.The agreement pairs Duke’s research resources with Verizon Connected Healthcare Solutions, the telecom giant’s healthcare practice group. Duke will make available personnel, including research and project management experts. Intellectual property from the [...]

A smokeless nicotine-delivery system developed by a Duke University researcher is now in the hands of tobacco industry giant Philip Morris International (NYSE:PM).Philip Morris has purchased the patent and global rights to an aerosol nicotine-delivery system developed by Jed Rose, who is director of Duke’s Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research. Financial terms were [...]

Duke University researchers have found that cells that play a role in triggering a response to bacteria and pathogens could also have a role in attacking dengue fever, a tropical disease for which there is no vaccine.A Duke research team at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore studied mast cells in mice. Mast cells [...]

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital veteran Dr. Michael Kastan has been named the new executive director of the Duke Cancer Institute.Kastan, a cancer scientist, is currently the director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center at St. Jude in Memphis, Tennessee. He has directed the cancer center since 2004 and under his tenure, St. Jude became the [...]