Science Market Update

The Center for Human Genome Variation (CHGV) at Duke University School of Medicine has just received a $25M grant to lead a 5-year, international study to identify the genetic basis of human epilepsy. The grant was awarded as part of a genetics of epilepsy "Center without Walls" initiative funded by the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke (NINDS) to a team of leaders in epilepsy and human genetics from around the world.  Heading that team is Dr. David Goldstein, who is a professor of Molecular Genetics & Microbiology, professor of Biology, and director of the CHGV at Duke. 

Wallace Coulter was not only a fantastically successful inventor of diagnostics equipment, but through the philanthropic Coulter Foundation he continues to promote medical innovation at over 10 universities across the US.  Duke University has just received a $10 million commitment to permanently endow its Coulter Translational Partnership in biomedical engineering, which, combined with grants from the Fitzpatrick Foundation and other Duke resources brings the program's endowed resources to $20 million, securing its long term future.

The Jane Goodall Institute was established in 1977 when young researcher Anne Pusey returned from Africa with boxes of Goodall's hard data: handwritten observations of chimp behavior from what would become the Gombe Preserve in Tanzania.  Those boxes went with Pusey to the University of Minnesota, where the long process of curation and (eventual) digitation began.  The Goodall Institute now has its headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, where it focuses on education, community development, and conservation, as well as research and management of its chimp sanctuary in the Congo.

On February 22, 2011, Dean of the Duke University School of Medicine, Nancy Andrews, M.D., Ph.D., gave her State of the School Address.  Part 4 of that speech was devoted to Duke's "Commitment to Research Infrastructure."  The full text of that section of the speech is available in the transcription below, or on the original video. 

(Photo courtesy of Duke University)