Inside Duke Medicine

Distinguished faculty

Through the generosity of donors, 11 distinguished professorships are awarded in the schools of Medicine and Nursing.

Ten members of the faculty of the School of Medicine and one from the School of Nursing were awarded distinguished professorships by Duke University on April 27, 2010.

Such endowed professorships are the most prestigious faculty appointments at Duke. Because they recognize exceptional achievement, they are awarded to only the most distinguished physician- and nurse-scientists. And, due to the limited number of distinguished professorships, there remain many deserving faculty members who are not yet ranked as distinguished professors.

Beginning with Duke University's founding benefactor, industrialist James Buchanan Duke, many individuals and families have generously invested their resources at Duke for the benefit of future generations.

Those who establish endowed professorships enter into a partnership with Duke Medicine. This legacy of support fuels Duke research, which leads to cures for disease and better health outcomes; education for tomorrow's physicians, nurses, and scientists, and innovative health care for our patients.

Ruth A. Anderson, Ph.D., RN, FAAN
Virginia Stone Professor of Nursing

Ruth A. Anderson, RN, Ph.D., FAAN, School of Nursing professor and a Senior Fellow in the Center for Aging and Human Development, focuses her research on improving care in nursing homes and long-term care facilities. “Dr. Anderson has revolutionized our knowledge of the nursing home environment,” says School of Nursing Dean Catherine L. Gilliss, D.N.Sc, RN, FAAN, Helene Fuld Health Trust Professor of Nursing and vice chancellor for nursing affairs. “Her contributions have illuminated our understanding of how to implement changes in care delivery to improve quality of life for older adults in long-term care facilities.”

Anderson is a principal investigator on an NIH/National Institute of Nursing Research grant testing the benefit of a new staff interaction intervention over and above a falls quality improvement intervention in reducing patient fall rates in nursing homes. She is an investigator on “Regulating licensed nursing practice in nursing homes: RN delegation, LPN practice, and care outcomes,” a grant funded by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, and “CONNECT for better falls prevention in VA community living centers,” funded by VA Health Services Research and Development.

She received her master of science in nursing degree specializing in gerontological nursing and her master of arts degree in social gerontology from the University of Pennsylvania, and her Ph.D. in nursing from The University of Texas at Austin. She came to Duke in 1998.

Vadim Arshavsky , Ph.D.
Helena Rubinstein Foundation Professor of Ophthalmology

Vadim Arshavsky, Ph.D., is a professor of ophthalmology and pharmacology, and scientific director of the Duke Eye Center’s Albert Eye Research Institute (AERI).

His research focuses on the study of signal transduction and intracellular trafficking in vertebrate rod and cone photoreceptors. These studies aim to understand how photoreceptors ensure the high temporal resolution of vision, how they maintain responsiveness to light throughout the vast changes of illumination levels during the day-night cycle, how they support their highly compartmentalized cellular structure, and how different subcellular compartments cooperate during the light response.

“Dr. Arshavsky is building an outstanding collaborative multidisciplinary retinal research program that is impressively interactive with other diseases and other neurobiological scientific programs,” says David Epstein, M.D., chair of the Department of Ophthalmology. “He has also been an extraordinary mentor to other scientific faculty. In his own right, he is a uniquely talented and recognized basic scientist.”

Arshavsky received his doctorate from Moscow State University in Russia in 1987. He joined Duke in July 2005.

Wesley Burks, M.D.
Kiser-Arena Professor of Pediatrics

Wesley Burks, M.D., chief of the Division of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, is internationally recognized as one of the world’s leaders in the field of food hypersensitivity.

His research goals focus on understanding the mechanism of food allergy, improving the diagnosis of food allergies in children, and developing an immune therapy for food allergies. In addition to food allergies and anaphylaxis, his clinical interests include asthma, allergic rhinitis, atopic dermatitis and other childhood allergic diseases.

“Wesley is leading an effort that is transforming the lives of patients with peanut allergies,” says Joseph St. Geme, M.D., chair of the Department of Pediatrics. “In addition to his impressive accomplishments as a translational investigator, he is an outstanding clinician and attracts patients from all over the region who hope to benefit from his clinical expertise. He is also a dedicated mentor who recognizes the impact he can have on the career development of others by sharing his experience and wisdom. I feel fortunate to consider him a colleague and friend.”

Burks received his medical degree and performed his residency at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine. He completed a fellowship in allergy and immunology at Duke University Medical Center, and has been on staff at Duke since 2003.

Blanche Capel, Ph.D.
James B. Duke Professor of Cell Biology

Blanche Capel, Ph.D., who came to Duke in 1993, knows just how tenuous the decision can be to develop as one sex or the other.

The broad goal of the research in her laboratory is to characterize the cellular and molecular basis of morphogenesis – how the body forms. She uses gonadal (gender/sex) development in the mouse as her model system, and investigates a gene she helped
discover, Sry, the male sexdetermining gene.

Gonad development is unique in that a single rudimentary tissue can be induced to form one of two different organs, an ovary or testis, and she is learning all she can about this central mystery of biology.

She earned her endowed professorship, the James B. Duke Professor of Cell Biology, for the meaningful discoveries she has made since her postdoctoral work in genetics at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania.

“Blanche Capel's research is elegant, original and incisive and has made her a world leader in the fields of sex determination and gonad development, two topics of great relevance to human health, fertility and well-being,” said Brigid Hogan, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Cell Biology.

Nelson Chao, M.D.
Donald D. and Elizabeth G. Cooke Cancer Research Professorship

Nelson Chao, M.D., believes in balance and includes time in each day for research into disease, seeing patients, raising children and heading up the Duke Division of Cellular Therapy.

Graft-versus-host disease, his area of expertise, occurs because of the differences between a donor's marrow and the recipient's tissues, which can cause T cells (a type of white blood cell) from the donor's marrow to recognize the recipient's body tissues as foreign. How to fool the body into accepting the foreign cells is Chao’s clinical responsibility and the basis for his research.

“Dr. Chao is an exciting recipient for the Donald D. and Elizabeth G. Cooke Cancer Research Professorship,” said Mary Klotman, M.D., chair of the Duke Department of Medicine. “His bench to bedside work has spanned the spectrum from understanding the immunologic basis of graft-versus-host disease in the laboratory to the development of novel clinical protocols that could improve the outcomes in hematopoietic stem cell and cord blood transplantation.”

Chao completed medical school at Yale and then went into an internship at Stanford, eventually veering into bone marrow transplantation, an area ripe for advancement, when his newborn needed major surgery. In 1996, he came to Duke to run the Bone Marrow Transplant Program, which is now part of the Division of Cellular Therapy.

David B. Goldstein, Ph.D.
Richard and Pat Johnson Distinguished University Professor

David Goldstein, Ph.D., is professor of molecular genetics and microbiology and director of the Center for Human Genome Variation at Duke University.

Goldstein’s laboratory is currently working on identifying genetic alterations linked to various diseases, including HIV, neuropsychiatric disorders, and cognition.

Working with colleagues at the Duke Clinical Research Institute, Goldstein recently discovered genetic signatures that predict response to hepatitis C treatments.

Goldstein is author of Jacob’s Ladder, an exploration of the genetic roots of the Jewish priesthood that demonstrated that most Jewish men who claim descent from ancient Jewish priests share a set of genetic markers dubbed the Cohen Modal Haplotype that arose roughly 3,000 years ago.

“David Goldstein is a singular talent and a world-class leader in the field of genomic investigation,” said Nancy Andrews, M.D., Ph.D., vice chancellor for academic affairs and dean of the School of Medicine. “In mining the human genome, he has already made important discoveries that help clinicians understand why some patients respond better to treatments than others, and his continued efforts will undoubtedly sharpen our understanding even further in this area and in other realms of personalized medicine. We are indeed fortunate to count him among our ranks.”

Trained as a population geneticist at Stanford, Goldstein began his academic career as a postdoctoral fellow at Pennsylvania State University and then moved to the United Kingdom, where he was University Lecturer at the University of Oxford and Wolfson Professor of Genetics at University College, London. He joined the faculty at Duke in 2005.

Robert A. Harington, M.D.
Richard Sean Stack, M.D./Guidant Foundation Professor of Cardiology

Robert A. Harrington, M.D., is director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute, as well as an interventional cardiologist and professor of medicine.

His research interests include evaluating antithrombotic therapies to treat acute ischemic heart disease and to minimize the acute complications of percutaneous coronary procedures. He is also studying the mechanism of acute coronary syndromes, the risk stratification of patients with acute ischemic coronary syndromes, and improving the methodology of clinical trials.

He is the recipient of an NIH Roadmap contract to investigate “best practices” among clinical trial networks and a GO Grant to transform the conduct of clinical trials by using national professional society databases as the backbone of clinical trial data collection.

“Dr. Harrington’s research accomplishments have helped to redefine the care of patients with acute ischemic heart disease,” says Rob Califf, M.D., vice chancellor for clinical research and director of the Duke Translational Medicine Institute. “He has helped to build national and international collaborations for the efficient conduct of innovative clinical research. At the same time he has helped to build a cardiovascular research faculty that touches upon all aspects of cardiovascular disease. He is a tireless advocate for the development of evidence to guide policies on medical practice.”

Harrington joined the Duke faculty in 1993 after completing residency training at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, followed by cardiology training at Duke. He received his medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine.

Nicholas Katsanis , Ph.D.
Jean and George Brumley, Jr., M.D., Professor of Developmental Biology

Nicholas Katsanis, Ph.D., of the departments of Cell Biology and Pediatrics, focuses on the Bardet-Biedl Syndrome (BBS), a rare genetic disorder with symptoms, that include obesity, renal failure and blindness.

In order to explain why BBS results in severe symptoms in some and only mild symptoms in others, his lab is developing animal models to understand how an individual’s genome can influence the clinical presentation of this and other genetic diseases.

“Nico Katsanis is a terrific addition to Duke,” said Brigid Hogan, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Cell Biology. “With his boundless energy and scientific vision, he will catalyze collaborations between cell biologists, geneticists and the clinicians dedicated to helping the youngest and most vulnerable of Duke's patients.”

Because of the ambitious scope of his work, he has been named a Jean and George Brumley, Jr., M.D., Professor of Developmental Biology, an endowed professorship in the Neonatal-Perinatal Research Institute. His lab collaborates to study an archetypal model of disorders caused by dysfunction of the primary cilium (a hairlike projection) on cells. The group is also credited with early work showing that monogenic disorders are actually much more complicated than was known. BBS is now a model for oligogenic disease, a category between classical monogenic and complex traits.

He earned his Ph.D. at the University of London in 1997 and completed his postdoctoral work at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He joined the Duke faculty in mid-May 2009.

Paul Noble, M.D.
Charles Johnson, M.D., Professor of Medicine

Paul Noble, M.D., heads the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine and finds time to be an excellent researcher in many areas of inquiry.

He concentrates on defining the mechanisms that contribute to chronic lung inflammation and lung fibrosis in the absence of infection.

“Paul Noble is a most deserving recipient of the Charles Johnson, M.D., Professsor of Medicine,” said Mary Klotman, M.D., chair of the Duke Department of Medicine. “He is an outstanding physician and scientist who has made substantial contributions to our understanding of the mediators of chronic inflammation in the lung. He clearly reflects the commitment to excellence exemplified by Dr. Johnson.”

Noble has focused on the role of an extracellular matrix glycosaminoglycan called hyaluronan that is produced in lung inflammation. He also studies the role of chemokines (immune response agents) and chemokine receptors in lung injury and repair. In addition, he has been voted one of the Best Doctors since 2007 for the state of North Carolina.

His training prepared him for a breadth of work. He arrived at Duke in 2006 after being recruited from Yale. He earned his medical degree at the New York University School of Medicine. He completed his internal medicine residency and chief residency at the University of California at San Francisco and his pulmonary and critical care fellowship at the University of Colorado and National Jewish Medical Center.

Eric D. Peterson, M.D.
Fred Cobb, M.D., Professor of Medicine

Eric Peterson, M.D., is professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology and the associate vice chair for quality at Duke University Medical Center. He is also an associate director and director of CV research at the Duke Clinical Research Institute.His research interests include critical care and general cardiology, acute coronary syndromes, and geriatric cardiology.

Peterson is the principal investigator for numerous clinical investigations, including the NIH/AHRQ Duke Centers for Education and Research on Therapeutics, the American Heart Association’s (AHA) PRT Outcomes Center grant, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons’ National Cardiac Surgery Database, the American College of Cardiology’s National Cardiac Database and the AHA Get with the Guidelines Data.

“Eric is an enormously talented and successful outcomes researcher who is widely acknowledged as a leader in his field,” says Rob Califf, M.D., vice chancellor for clinical research and director of the Duke Translational Medicine Institute. “As the author
of hundreds of peer-reviewed publications, Eric has disseminated his professional knowledge in a way that will help define new and better ways to integrate medical knowledge into better clinical outcomes for patients.”

After receiving a medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Peterson completed his residency in medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, followed by a master’s in public health at Harvard School of Public Health. He completed a fellowship in cardiology at Duke University Medical Center and joined the faculty in 1995.

John H. Sampson, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Robert H. Wilkins and Gloria Wilkins Professor of Neurosurgery

John Sampson, M.D., Ph.D., professor of surgery and associate deputy director of the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center, is passionate about his research in the development and use of immunotherapy to treat brain tumors.

While chemotherapy, radiation and other man-made treatments can kill cancer cells, they kill normal cells, too. But as Sampson points out, therapies that strengthen the body’s own defense system can be cell specific, and much less toxic.

Sampson divides his time between the laboratory and the operating room, testing vaccine candidates against special molecular targets that support the growth of glioblastomas and other types of tumors, and performing some of the most complex neurological surgeries Duke sees, for which he received special training.

“John is an exceptionally talented physician,” said Darell Bigner, M.D., Ph.D., Edwin L. Jones, Jr. and Lucille Finch Jones Cancer Research Professor and director of the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center. “He took three years out of his neurosurgery residency to obtain a Ph.D. with me, a most unusual step for a neurosurgical resident. His immunotherapy trials are markedly extending survival and offering excellent quality of life for many of our patients.”

Sampson earned his medical degree at the University of Manitoba. He moved to the U.S. when he began his internship at Duke in 1990. He also completed a residency in neurosurgery at Duke, training under the renowned David Sabiston, M.D., then chair of the Department of Surgery.