Rebecca Hatcher Buckley, MD, graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Duke University in 1954, a doctor of medicine degree from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in 1958 and completed residency training in Pediatrics and fellowship training in allergy and immunology, all at Duke. She served as chief of the Division of Allergy and Immunology from 1974 to 2003 and has been the James Buren Sidbury Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Immunology at Duke since 1979.
Buckley’s research interests have been focused on the fundamental causes of genetically-determined immunodeficiency diseases. For the past 38 years, her research has been on the syndrome of severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). She has advocated for newborn screening for SCID for the past one and a half decades, which was ultimately implemented in May of 2010.
She has trained more than 80 postdoctoral fellows and is author or co-author of more than 315 scientific publications. She has been a member of more than 30 national committees and councils. She served two full terms as a director of the American Board of Allergy and Immunology. In addition, she chaired the NIH Immunological Sciences Study Section and was a member of NIAID’s Board of Scientific Counselors.
Buckley has received numerous awards and honors for her contributions to medicine from organizations such as the National Institutes of Health, the Immune Deficiency Foundation, the American Society for Microbiology and American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. She is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha. In October of 2003, she was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. On April 29, 2012, she was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences. On March 26, 2014, she was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award in Genetics from the American College of Medical Genetics. She was elected a member of the Association of American Physicians on April 26, 2014, and on May 4, 2014, she was the recipient of the John Howland Award from the American Pediatric Society.
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