News and Events

Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine was granted an emergency use authorization for 12- to 15-year-olds by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration on Monday. Dr. Michael Smith, a Duke University pediatrician and infectious disease specialist involved in the pediatric trials of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, discussed vaccination of adolescents during a video conference call for the media on Tuesday.

In this week's Spotlight, Kristen Ammon, MSN, RN, NE-BC, discusses her current responsibilities as nurse manager for the 5200 Unit and offers her perspectives on the biggest challenges and opportunities in nursing. She also talks about what she enjoys most about her work and offers some valuable advice for aspiring nurses.

A new $8 million NIH grant seeks to uncover more clues into what genes increase the risk of developing schizophrenia. Greg Crawford, Charles Gersbach, Timothy Reddy, and Raluca Gordân at Duke have teamed up with researchers from UNC Chapel Hill and Yale University to narrow down areas of the genome previously marked relevant to schizophrenia risk.

Michael Cohen-Wolkowiez, MD, PhD, was inducted into the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) at an April joint meeting of ASCI, the Association of American Physicians (AAP), and the American Physician-Scientists Association (APSA). 

n this week’s Faculty Spotlight, Veerajalandhar Allareddy talks about his current responsibilities as chief of the Section of Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care and the opportunity of developing a Neonatal-Young Infant Cardiac ICU. He also discusses his research interests focused on health care outcomes and value-based care and shares the knowledge and skills he acquired from his most significant mentors.

A digital app successfully detected one of the telltale characteristics of autism in young children, suggesting the technology could one day become an inexpensive and scalable early screening tool, researchers at Duke University report.

Mai ElMallah, MD, MS, associate professor of pediatrics in the Division of Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine, associate professor in neurobiology and cell biology and director of the Duke Cystic Fibrosis Center, was recently named chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics, effective August 1, 2021.

Michelle White, MD, MPH, assistant professor of pediatrics with appointments in the Division of Hospital Medicine and the Duke Center for Childhood Obesity Research, has been named associate director of the Duke Pediatric Research Scholars Program for Physician-Scientist Development (DPRS), effective May 1, 2021.

The DCRI-based ABC Science Collaborative is launching a new study as part of the Safe Return to School Diagnostic Testing Initiative, an extension of the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics-Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) program that is funded by the National Institutes of Health. The study will be led by DCRI faculty member and ABC Science Collaborative co-chair Kanecia Zimmerman, MD, MPH. Zimmerman, along with ABC Science Collaborative co-chair Danny Benjamin, MD, PhD, MPH.

This week’s Faculty Spotlight shines on pediatric infectious diseases physician Yeh-Chung “Daniel” Chang, MD. Chang talks to us about how he first became interested in becoming a pediatrician from a very young age, and specifically, infectious diseases during medical school and his pediatric residency; his interest in viral infections in pediatric transplant patients and in vaccine responses and the development of antifungals for this population; and the significance of his most important mentor, Dr. Bill Steinbach.