News and Events

Josie Dunnigan became one of the first children in the United States to have what’s known as a double-switch procedure to re-direct blood flow and re-assign the left ventricle with the task of pumping blood out to the body. Since her first heart surgery in 2001 at the age of one and a half, Josie and her family had moved to North Carolina and her mother sought out Dr. Piers Barker for her daughter’s continued care. From 2006 onward, Dr. Barker has served as Josie’s primary cardiologist, seeing her through a total of six heart surgeries by the age of 21.

This week’s Faculty Spotlight shines on Timothy Driscoll, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics in the Division of Transplant and Cellular Therapy. Driscoll talks to us about how he became interested in medicine as early as elementary school and how he became interested in pediatric transplant and cellular therapy in particular. He also shares his reflections on the biggest current challenges and opportunities in the field and his work outside of Duke with medical missions to the impoverished people of Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Twin 9-year-old girls at Duke Health became the first in the United States to participate in a Pfizer and BioNTech Phase 1 study to evaluate safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in preventing COVID-19 among healthy children below the age of 12.

Three new scholars, including Rachel Cason, MD, a first-year nephrology fellow in the Department of Pediatrics, have been accepted to the Duke CTSA TL1 Post-Doctoral Training Program. The TL1 Program provides two years of funded time to support the research training of outstanding junior scientists.

Duke pediatric epileptologists are combining existing virtual and augmented reality technology to create a mixed reality experience to improve surgical accuracy and taking a new look at an established dietary therapy to help improve outcomes for children and adolescents with hard-to-control epilepsy.

New and competing renewal awards made to faculty in the Department of Pediatrics for the month of February 2021 are announced.

Andrew Landstrom, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics and cell biology, has been named director of the Duke Pediatric Research Scholars Program for Physician-Scientist Development (DPRS), effective April 1, 2021.