Resilience
Resilience
If COVID-19 taught us nothing else, viruses have the power to rapidly turn our world upside down. But what about other health concerns and insecurities? How do we prepare ourselves for the best health outcomes no matter what comes next?
From harnessing the brain’s own resilience to fight Alzheimer’s disease to improving cancer outcomes by understanding how it defends itself against existing treatments, researchers at Duke are helping to prepare us for a future where our bodies and brains are stronger and safer. With research focusing on the brain, cancer, the immune system, and viruses, and advanced capabilities to take research from bench to bedside, we are furthering the advancement of health and medicine in communities across the globe so that all of us, no matter who we are or where we live, can lead our best lives.
Duke’s Big Bets
The Brain
Understanding its unique structure, developing new ways to heal injuries, heading off disease before it occurs.
Cancer
Learning its mechanisms to create better treatments and effective prevention.
The Immune System
Controlling our response to biological invaders so that our bodies eliminate harmful ones and don’t overreact to benign ones.
Viruses
Mastering the genetics, spread and mutations of viral and other microbial agents to protect us from them before they can do harm.
Living our best lives? Challenge accepted.
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Resilience
Fighting heart disease with novel approaches to care
Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of people in the United States and worldwide. Yet physicians often do not prescribe evidence-based medicines that could change those statistics.
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Resilience
Trudy Oliver Tracks a Deadly, Shapeshifting Tumor
Trudy Oliver, PhD, studies a type of cancer that has a 5-year overall survival rate of just 7%. Its biological drivers are different from most other cancers, so it’s harder to develop targeted treatments. On top of that, research into this tumor is under-funded.
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Resilience
Gut Microbiome May Hold the Key to Healthy Aging
One of the latest targets in the study of healthy aging is the gut. Increasingly, research points to changes in the gut microbiome as a predictor of longevity and how well we age.
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Resilience
Cold Comfort: How an Ion Channel Activates Our Response to Temperature
How our bodies sense our environment and react to it is a big question, and how we answer it can have important implications for drug development.
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Resilience
Duke Studying Why Some Cancers Become Resistant to Therapy
David G. Kirsch, MD, PhD, is leading a Duke Cancer Institute study on cancer biology and radiation response.
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Resilience
Interdisciplinary Duke Team Awarded NSF Grant to Better Understand and Predict Epidemics
Eight interdisciplinary research projects
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Resilience
Duke Team Awarded $1 million to Predict the Next Pandemic
Experts know COVID-19 won’t be the last major pandemic. What they don’t know is where, or when, the next one will begin.
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Resilience
Gene Therapy for Heart Attacks in Mice Just Got More Precise
Gene enhancer from zebrafish senses damage, orchestrates repairs
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Resilience
Listening in on the Conversations of Fat Cells
Your body is in constant dialogue with its own fat, and fat talks a lot.
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Resilience
A Bold New Effort Aims to Harness the Mechanisms of Resilience
What if we could control genes linked to cancer to prevent them from developing into tumors in the first place? How can we extend our brain’s ability to forestall damage from Alzheimer’s disease? Is it possible to develop a vaccine for everything?
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Resilience
A Fountain of Youth for the Brain
Duke University neurobiologist Lindsey Glickfeld is pushing the limits of brain plasticity.
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Resilience
Chantell Evans, Ph.D.: Examining the Links Between Damaged Mitochondria and Brain Diseases
Neurobiologist Chantell Evans Ph.D. wants to end neurogenerative disease.
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Resilience
Carolyn Coyne, Ph.D.: Exploring How Viruses Evade the Placental Barrier
The human placenta performs a delicate balancing act: it must let beneficial nutrients pass from the mother to the developing fetus, but block harmful pathogens from making the same trip.
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Resilience
Zhao Zhang, Ph.D.: Follow the Jumping Genes
Zhao Zhang Ph.D. — ZZ to just about everyone — is a bit of a scientific outlier.
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Resilience
Micro focus. Macro impact.
Raphael Valdivia, professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at Duke, explores how tiny microbes found in the body—too small to see without a microscope—can be wielded to fight disease and to influence better health outcomes for all.
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Resilience
Understanding Cellular Death for Good
Fighting off bacterial pathogens that invade our own cells
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Resilience
Harnessing the Brain’s Resilience to Fight Alzheimer’s Disease
Unlocking the secrets of aging and disease
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Resilience
Discovery of I-Shaped Antibody Opens New Avenue to HIV Vaccine
About 38 million people worldwide are living with AIDS. Pharmaceutical treatments can keep the disease in check, but a vaccine remains elusive despite decades of concerted effort. However, a recent discovery at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute (DHVI) brings the goal of an effective vaccine within reach.
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Resilience
Challenge Accepted: Duke Science and Technology
A Bold New Effort Aims to Harness the Mechanisms of Resilience
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Resilience
Resilience and the Importance of Basic Science
What if we could supercharge our bodies to fight disease?
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Resilience
Getting Personal with Blood Cancers
For most cancers, advances in genomics haven’t changed treatment strategies very much. Sandeep Dave, M.D., M.S., envisions making personalized treatment a reality for more patients, by developing and making better use of tools that already exist.
Ready to learn more?
We’re ready to answer tomorrow’s challenges right now. Your investment in team research and discovery science through Duke Science and Technology will have exponential impact on people and our planet, delivering unheard of results.
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