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ZiYan Britt’s work as a senior clinical research specialist allows her to connect with two passions: learning more about neuroscience and the brain while also having the opportunity to get to know and bond with the patients involved in that research. For this week’s Spotlight interview, Britt talks to us about her work collecting and documenting electrophysiological data from epilepsy patients.

Carlene Moore’s infectious, bellowing laugh helps offset the serious nature of the work underway in her lab at Duke University School of Medicine to study painful conditions -- from sunburn and migraines to trigeminal neuralgia, a severe facial condition so painful it is known as the “suicide disease.”   

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is how we visualize soft, watery tissue that is hard to image with X-rays. But while an MRI provides good enough resolution to spot a brain tumor, it needs to be a lot sharper to visualize microscopic details within the brain that reveal its organization.

In December 1995, the work of over 40 researchers culminated with a landmark publication in Nature. The team had discovered a second breast cancer susceptibility gene: BRCA2. Their discovery revolutionized cancer research and screening in breast, ovarian, and prostate cancers and has impacted millions of people’s lives in the years since.

The American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) has awarded Nicole Calakos, MD, PhD, its 2023 Stanley J. Korsmeyer Award. The Korsmeyer Award recognizes outstanding achievements of ASCI members in advancing knowledge and mentoring future generations of life science researchers. Calakos received this award for her contributions to understanding basal ganglia physiology and its involvement in diseases such as compulsive behavior and movement disorders.

This March, new research from members of the Duke Neurology Department advanced our missions of patient care, translational and clinical research, and neurology training, contributing to 16 new peer-reviewed journal articles.

Managing research projects for one academic laboratory can be challenging on its own. Oula Khoury, PhD, the subject of our latest Spotlight interview, has to juggle projects for five at Duke (plus one more at Stanford) as part of an Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) initiative. Khoury talks to us about her work managing timelines, experiments, and budgets for these projects in an effort to learn more about neurons’ vulnerability to Parkinson’s.

 The shortest month of the year was still an active one for research in the Duke Neurology Department. Our faculty, trainees, and staff members contributed to 10 new peer-reviewed journal articles this February.

The final month of 2022 saw the release of 12 new peer-reviewed journal articles written or co-written by members of the Duke Neurology Department. Highlights of our most recent publications include an evaluation of a training program designed to improve the delivery of epilepsy care in Uganda, a review of recent advances in the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome, and a discussion of treatment options for the autoimmune condition known as neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD).

The Duke Neurology Department continued to build on its success in the second half of 2022. The final six months of 2022 saw Duke University Hospital receive national rankings for neurology and neurosurgery, our first endowed professorship dedicated to help treat and understand amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and recognition as the country’s second national center of excellence for dystonia among other achievements.