Cell Biology Newsroom

Biomedical engineers at Duke University have demonstrated a promising new approach that could be used to treat a rare and complex class of genetic diseases caused by defects in a relatively large region of the genome.

Duke University has received $8 million from the Duke Endowment to support the development of interdisciplinary PhD graduate education collaboratives to prepare doctoral students to tackle the most pressing societal problems of our time. Suzanne Barber, dean of the Graduate School and a professor of cell biology, will help implement the new programs.

Daichi Shonai, a PhD student at Duke University, hopes to identify early warning signs of Parkinson’s disease by investigating the early molecular changes within the nerve cells that stop functioning in this brain disorder.

Stefano Di Talia and Amy Gladfelter are among five faculty in the School of Medicine who have been promoted or appointed to the rank of full professor.

 

Two School of Medicine faculty members have been honored with Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on outstanding scientists and engineers early in their careers.

Researchers at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute successfully created an HIV vaccine candidate that guides key immune cells along an evolutionary pathway to become broadly neutralizing antibodies.

Akankshi Munjal, PhD, assistant professor of cell biology, is driven by her fascination with watching development happen.

A team led by Rohit Singh, PhD, has developed a computational technique that allows large language models to predict antibody structures more accurately. The work, which could aid in finding new treatments for infectious diseases, is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Duke University Office of Research and Innovation has awarded nearly $2 million in seed grants to jumpstart new research ideas. Department of Cell Biology faculty member Amy Gladfelter, PhD, was one of the recipients, for her work to understand how pathogenic fungi adapt to temperature stress.