Overview

Historical Highlights Timeline

What sets Duke apart from the rest?

• The Duke Clinical Research Institute is the largest academic research organization in the world. Dedicated to improving patient care through innovative clinical research, it performs clinical research across the spectrum, ranging from: Phase I through Phase IV clinical trials; outcomes research; registries of more than 100,000 patients; and economic and quality of life studies in populations spanning more than 20 therapeutic areas.
  
  
• The Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI) works to reduce health disparities in our local community and worldwide. Recognizing that many global health problems stem from economic, social, environmental, political and health care inequalities, DGHI brings together interdisciplinary teams to solve complex health problems and to train the next generation of global health scholars. The institute works with faculty and students from every school at Duke. It coordinates educational programs for undergraduate, graduate and professional students and facilitates multi-disciplinary education, research and service efforts on campus and in a variety of international sites.
  
  
• The Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, and History of Medicine, the Center for Chemical Biology, and the $200-million Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy.
   
• Sarah W. Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center. Research efforts include translating basic science and epidemiological findings into well-designed clinical trials, ultimately leading to the development of new therapies for diseases with a metabolic basis such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.
   
• The Duke Human Vaccine Institute (DHVI) is a national and international leader in the fight against the major infectious diseases. Institute leaders head the $45-million Southeast Regional Center of Excellence for Emerging Infections and Biodefense (SERCEB), established by the NIH and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2003 to perform the basic and translational research to make drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics to protect society from emerging infections and biothreats.
  
  
• The Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center, among the top United States comprehensive cancer centers in peer-reviewed research support, is known for designing innovative therapies using bone marrow transplantation and hyperthermia, for its studies of the immune responses to tumors, and for its unique approach to treating brain tumors, melanoma, lung cancer, breast and ovarian cancer, and prostate cancer.
  
  
• The Duke Heart Center has conducted many of the leading studies on the genetic factors underlying heart disease and early trials of new treatments for heart disease, as well as a long-term federal project to define appropriate treatment for heart attack patients.
  
  
• The Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development is conducting one of the nation's largest studies of the elderly, surveying over 4,000 people annually to identify risk factors that lead to chronic disease and loss of independence.
  
  
• Duke Integrative Medicine is also the first in the country to attempt to examine and quantify the value of mind-body-spirit interventions for the treatment of chronic heart failure.

Research