Introducing Fall 2024 Breakthroughs

Published

Cover of the Fall/Winter 2024 Breakthroughs
On the Cover: Duke's PRIME PREP program helped Gabriella Torres get the research experience she needed to become a PhD student in the Department of Integrative Immunobiology at Duke University School of Medicine.

Investing in the Future

AT DUKE CANCER INSTITUTE (DCI), we strive to be the employer of choice for professionals in cancer fields and to ensure that the next generation of physicians and scientists represents the communities we serve. A diverse cancer workforce improves patient outcomes and leads to creative solutions and novel approaches in cancer research and patient care.

In this issue of Breakthroughs, you will meet just a few of the people working to invigorate the cancer workforce, as well as a student pursuing her goal of earning a PhD in integrative immunobiology thanks to a federally funded DCI effort aimed at bringing more recent college graduates into the sciences.

Also in this issue, you’ll learn one way in which DCI is continuing to innovate in treating the whole person, not just the cancer. An initial clinical trial of a new structured support program to help young adults successfully manage their new lives as cancer survivors helped researcher Caroline Dorfman, PhD, win a MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health to conduct a larger trial of this intervention. This long-term grant recognizes exceptional researchers whose work shows significant promise.

None of these efforts, and many others, would be possible without our donors and friends. Thank you for all that you do in helping us shape the future of cancer care and research.

signature of Michael Kastn

Michael B. Kastan, MD, PhD
Executive Director, Duke Cancer Institute
William and Jane Shingleton Professor of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology

 

This article was originally published in the Fall 2024 Breakthroughs. Read more about DCI's breakthrough research and patient care in this biannual magazine.

A family and their two dogs smiling on a couch.
Cancer survivor Iris Bugbee with her husband, Greg, daughter Mila, and corgis, Candi and Charli, at her home in Fuquay Varina in 2024. Bugbee participated in a clinical trial aimed at helping young adults battling cancer learn strategies to ease their post-treatment symptom burden through things like mindfulness and physical activity. Photo by Eamon Queeney/Duke University School of Medicine.

Young with Cancer

Piloting a New Support Program

Read Now
A woman and man gesture with their hands while talking in a laboratory.
Gerard "Gerry" Blobe and Tammara Watts work to build the next generation of cancer scientists and physicians. Photo by Eamon Queeney/Duke University School of Medicine.

Tomorrow's Hope

Nurturing the Next Generation

Read Now
Two women in lab coats in front of a a computer with brain images and a large microscope.
Postdoctoral associate Danhui Ma (left) spent countless hours learning new microscopy techniques under the guidance of Dorothy Sipkins to confirm how breast cancer spreads to the leptomeninges (membranes that protect the brain and spinal cord).

Revealing a Shortcut

How Breast Cancer Spreads to the Brain

Read Now
A portrait of a woman in her home
Janet Davas at her North Carolina home.

Putting Cancer on the Back Burner

Janet Davas refuses to let cancer define her.

Read Now
A womans wearing blue gloves holds up a vial under a fume hood.
Duke's PRIME-PREP Program helped Gabriella Torres get the research experience she needed to become a PhD student in the Duke University Department of Integrative Immunobiology.

Filling in the Gaps

Duke's PRIME PREP program gave an aspiring cancer researcher the experience she needed.

Read Now

Related News

A family and their two dogs smiling on a couch.
Cancer survivor Iris Bugbee with her husband, Greg, daughter Mila, and corgis, Candi and Charli, at her home in Fuquay Varina in 2024. Bugbee participated in a clinical trial aimed at helping young adults battling cancer learn strategies to ease their post-treatment symptom burden through things like mindfulness and physical activity. Photo by Eamon Queeney/Duke University School of Medicine.
Article

Helping Young Adults Move Forward after Cancer

Being diagnosed with cancer and going through treatment isn’t easy for anyone. For people diagnosed as young adults (ages 18-39), the experience comes with some unique challenges.“This is an age of transition,” said Caroline Dorfman, PhD, a clinical psychologist at the Duke Cancer Institute. People in this age group are often in the midst of reaching milestones such as graduation, landing a job, building a friend group, getting married, and having children, she said. “One of the things we hear from our patients,” she said, “is that the cancer diagnosis stops them in their tracks from being able to move forward on life milestones.”Even after treatment ends, life doesn’t suddenly switch back to normal. Physical symptoms like pain and fatigue can linger, and emotional distress is common during the post-treatment period. Multiple follow-up appointments can present financial and logistical difficulties as well as emotional reminders of cancer.“Sometimes they just want the cancer behind them and to get back to doing what matters to them,” Dorfman said. “The trouble is that when they are in the midst of treatment, they are just trying to get through it, and they don’t stop to process the experience.”That emotional processing often happens after the last chemo treatment or radiation session.To support young adults during this vulnerable period, Dorfman has designed a 10-week program that aims to give them the tools they need to navigate physical and emotional symptoms and learn how to successfully manage their new lives as cancer survivors.

Duke Cancer Institute Blog
A womans wearing blue gloves holds up a vial under a fume hood.
Duke's PRIME-PREP Program helped Gabriella Torres get the research experience she needed to become a PhD student in the Duke University Department of Integrative Immunobiology.
Article

Filling in the Gaps

When Gabriella Torres was eight, she needed steroids to control asthma and allergies. Then her allergist recommended she take up swimming, and it helped. When she was nine, her younger brother was diagnosed with leukemia. He was treated and recovered. But watching him go through that left an impression.As she got older, Torres had nothing but questions. Why did swimming improve her asthma? Why did her brother get so sick? And why did treatment work for him when it doesn’t for so many other children?Torres was driven to find the answers. In college at New York University, she thought about becoming a pediatric oncologist; she pursued research experiences recommended for students interested in medicine. But then during her junior year an internship at a pharmaceutical company got her interested in pursuing a PhD. “I had never heard of getting a PhD before that,” said Torres, who is from New York City, where her parents are chefs. “But I was able to see that I could use my love of thinking critically about problems long term but still work on a project that relates directly to helping people.”Torres was on the swim team in college and spent much of her free time training. But she got as much research experience as she could, then applied to the integrative immunobiology PhD program at Duke University School of Medicine in 2023.Torres didn’t get in. Her goal of becoming a scientist could have ended there. Instead, she received a call from Johnna Frierson, PhD, associate dean of equity, diversity, and inclusion for the basic sciences at the School of Medicine, asking her if she’d be interested in applying for Duke’s PRIME PREP Program, which provides a year of research experience to recent undergraduates.Torres interviewed for PRIME PREP and got in, then she spent time at Duke conducting research in the lab of Stacy Horner, PhD, associate professor in integrative immunobiology.

Duke Cancer Institute Blog

Related News

A family and their two dogs smiling on a couch.
Cancer survivor Iris Bugbee with her husband, Greg, daughter Mila, and corgis, Candi and Charli, at her home in Fuquay Varina in 2024. Bugbee participated in a clinical trial aimed at helping young adults battling cancer learn strategies to ease their post-treatment symptom burden through things like mindfulness and physical activity. Photo by Eamon Queeney/Duke University School of Medicine.
Article

Helping Young Adults Move Forward after Cancer

Being diagnosed with cancer and going through treatment isn’t easy for anyone. For people diagnosed as young adults (ages 18-39), the experience comes with some unique challenges.“This is an age of transition,” said Caroline Dorfman, PhD, a clinical psychologist at the Duke Cancer Institute. People in this age group are often in the midst of reaching milestones such as graduation, landing a job, building a friend group, getting married, and having children, she said. “One of the things we hear from our patients,” she said, “is that the cancer diagnosis stops them in their tracks from being able to move forward on life milestones.”Even after treatment ends, life doesn’t suddenly switch back to normal. Physical symptoms like pain and fatigue can linger, and emotional distress is common during the post-treatment period. Multiple follow-up appointments can present financial and logistical difficulties as well as emotional reminders of cancer.“Sometimes they just want the cancer behind them and to get back to doing what matters to them,” Dorfman said. “The trouble is that when they are in the midst of treatment, they are just trying to get through it, and they don’t stop to process the experience.”That emotional processing often happens after the last chemo treatment or radiation session.To support young adults during this vulnerable period, Dorfman has designed a 10-week program that aims to give them the tools they need to navigate physical and emotional symptoms and learn how to successfully manage their new lives as cancer survivors.

Duke Cancer Institute Blog
A womans wearing blue gloves holds up a vial under a fume hood.
Duke's PRIME-PREP Program helped Gabriella Torres get the research experience she needed to become a PhD student in the Duke University Department of Integrative Immunobiology.
Article

Filling in the Gaps

When Gabriella Torres was eight, she needed steroids to control asthma and allergies. Then her allergist recommended she take up swimming, and it helped. When she was nine, her younger brother was diagnosed with leukemia. He was treated and recovered. But watching him go through that left an impression.As she got older, Torres had nothing but questions. Why did swimming improve her asthma? Why did her brother get so sick? And why did treatment work for him when it doesn’t for so many other children?Torres was driven to find the answers. In college at New York University, she thought about becoming a pediatric oncologist; she pursued research experiences recommended for students interested in medicine. But then during her junior year an internship at a pharmaceutical company got her interested in pursuing a PhD. “I had never heard of getting a PhD before that,” said Torres, who is from New York City, where her parents are chefs. “But I was able to see that I could use my love of thinking critically about problems long term but still work on a project that relates directly to helping people.”Torres was on the swim team in college and spent much of her free time training. But she got as much research experience as she could, then applied to the integrative immunobiology PhD program at Duke University School of Medicine in 2023.Torres didn’t get in. Her goal of becoming a scientist could have ended there. Instead, she received a call from Johnna Frierson, PhD, associate dean of equity, diversity, and inclusion for the basic sciences at the School of Medicine, asking her if she’d be interested in applying for Duke’s PRIME PREP Program, which provides a year of research experience to recent undergraduates.Torres interviewed for PRIME PREP and got in, then she spent time at Duke conducting research in the lab of Stacy Horner, PhD, associate professor in integrative immunobiology.

Duke Cancer Institute Blog