Kids with Pompe disease fail because of a missing enzyme, GAA, that leads to dangerous sugar build-up, which affects muscles and movement.

One of the most comprehensive studies to date of the microbes that are found in extremely low-birthweight infants found that hard-to-treat Candida fungus is often present, as well as some harmful bacteria and parasites. Researchers at the Duke University Medical Center and Nicholas School of the Environment looked at the microbes in 11 premature infants and found much less diversity than in full-term infants. “The babies’ guts were taken over by microbes we know are dangerous if they get into the blood,” said senior author Patrick Seed, MD, PhD , assistant professor of pediatrics at Duke

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

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 commonly held theory says that flu virus persists in Southeast and Eastern Asia, making this region the source of seasonal flu epidemics in other parts of the world. However, researchers at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore have found that influenza A virus doesn’t persist in those tropical regions as the only global source of annual epidemics.

A new analysis of teenage drug abuse finds widespread problems among whites, Native Americans, Hispanics and youngsters of multiple races, with less severe abuse among Asian and African-American teens. Among kids who abuse drugs, marijuana is most heavily used, followed by stimulants and then alcohol. Prescription opioids such as oxycodone have surpassed inhalants as a source for getting high

Duke University Medical Center has been awarded a $25 million grant to study the genetic basis of human epilepsy in order to improve our understanding of the biology of epilepsy and to develop new directions for its treatment. Epilepsy affects up to 3 percent of people at some point in their lives. While there is clearly a strong genetic basis, few genes have been found to date.