The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded three grants to the Duke University Medical Center for HIV projects in the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD) program. The total amount of all three grants is about $37.2 million. A 5-year, $24.6 million grant from the Gates Foundation will allow David Montefiori, Ph.D., professor of surgery and director of the Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine Research and Development in the Department of Surgery and his collaborators to continue their efforts

In a finding that confirms what many obstetricians and gynecologists suspected, Duke University researchers report that younger women who undergo hysterectomies face a nearly two-fold increased risk for developing menopause early. The study, published in the December issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, is the largest analysis to track over time the actual hormonal impact of woman who had hysterectomies and compare them to women whose uteruses remained intact. “Hysterectomy is a common treatment for many conditions, including fibroids and excessive bleeding,” said Patricia G

Most AIDS patients, when diagnosed with a fungal infection known simply as cryptococcosis, are assumed to have an infection with Cryptococcus neoformans, but a recent study from Duke University Medical Center suggests that a sibling species, Cryptococcus gattii, is a more common cause than was previously known. The difference between these strains could make a difference in treatment, clinical course, and outcome, said Joseph Heitman, MD, PhD , senior author of the study and chair of the Duke Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology

For years, researchers have published papers that associate chronic stress with chromosomal damage. Now researchers at Duke University Medical Center have discovered a mechanism that helps to explain the stress response in terms of DNA damage. “We believe this paper is the first to propose a specific mechanism through which a hallmark of chronic stress, elevated adrenaline, could eventually cause DNA damage that is detectable,” said senior author Robert J.

An occasional nuisance men endure to check for prostate cancer, the digital rectal exam may have heightened importance for those who are obese. Researchers at the Duke Cancer Institute and elsewhere have found that the doctors’ office exam may be better at detecting advanced prostate tumors in heavy men than in their normal-weight counterparts

Cancer cells circulating in the blood carry newly identified proteins that could be screened to improve prognostic tests and suggest targets for therapies, report scientists at the Duke Cancer Institute. Building on current technologies that detect tumor cells circulating in blood, the Duke team was able to characterize these cells in a new way, illuminating how they may escape from the originating tumors and move to other locations in the body. The circulating tumor cmoponents include proteins normally seen when embryonic stem cells begin to specialize and move through the body to develop organs such as the heart, bones and skin, the Duke scientists reported this month in the journal Molecular Cancer Research.

Joseph Heitman, MD, PhD , James B. Duke Professor and chair of the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at Duke University, has received an NIH MERIT (Method to Extend Research in Time) Award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases . This MERIT Award will fund a project entitled: “The genetics of Cryptococcus sexual reproduction” in an extended cycle of 10 years, rather than the typical five-year time frame of R01 grants, which Heitman had received previously