Click on the faculty members' names to learn more about them: • Farshid Guilak, PhD, Laszlo Ormandy Professor of Orthopedic Surgery, professor of biomedical engineering, director of orthopedic research • Terry Lechler, PhD, assistant professor of cell biology • Paul Noble, MD, professor of medicine and division chief, pulmonary medicine • Tannishtha Reya, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and cancer biology • Rob Wechsler-Reya, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and cancer biology • Michelle P. Winn, MD, HS’92-’99, assistant professor, nephrology, and Center for Human Genetics

by Marsha Green,
Inside Duke Medicine

Six Duke faculty members got a surprise in their mailboxes in February: they have been chosen as the inaugural Duke Med Scholars—an award that both recognizes them as
rising stars in science and provides additional financial support for their research.

“Because the quality of the faculty is the single most defining element of any academic organization, we must invest in faculty members—not just to get them to come here, but to convince them to make Duke their home,” says R. Sanders Williams, MD’74, HS’77-’80, dean of the School of Medicine, who sent the letters. “There are many ways of doing that, but one way we have agreed upon is to invest in faculty who we believe are going to make a major difference in science and medicine over the next generation.”

These faculty members have shown great promise in their areas. Their investigations range from bioengineering better joints to tracking down the genetic basis of a form of kidney disease. Some are new to Duke, while others have been here for several years.

“These awards reflect the diversity of our faculty efforts,” says Williams. “And as we continue to choose new Duke Med Scholars each year, we will celebrate the balanced excellence that is one of our distinguishing features as an academic medical center. We want to nurture basic scientists, translational investigators, patient-oriented researchers, and master clinicians and teachers with equal fervor.”

Investing in Future

Funded by The Duke Endowment, the Duke Med Scholar program was conceived as part of the School of Medicine’s strategic plan, which focuses on people, places, and programs. The awards provide additional financial support to faculty members who appear poised to make the next big step forward in their research and their careers.

“The Duke Med Scholar program isn’t a lifetime achievement award,” says Peter Agre, MD, vice chancellor for science and technology. “It is an award we want to give each year to those faculty who are rising stars. It is for people who we believe haven’t yet achieved their maximum potential, but who will be the future leaders in science if they do. We expect these people to be the next generation of people who might be invited to join the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Science, maybe even win the Nobel Prize!”

A Nobel laureate himself, Agre chaired the selection committee for the 2006 Duke Med Scholars. It is a task that he says took “the wisdom of Solomon, considering the large number of high quality nominations we had.”

Each year the Duke Med Scholars committee, appointed by the dean, will continue to select new Duke Med Scholars. The charge of the committee is to collect nominations from department chairs, center directors, and other faculty members. Their challenge is to choose a small number of these faculty members who look to be future leaders, but who also reflect the balance of Duke’s missions. They will focus not only on current faculty members, but also up-and-coming faculty being recruited to Duke from other universities.

Both Agre and Williams admit to a rush of excitement in making this sort of investment in faculty, not only because of the individuals involved, but also because of the ripple effect involved.

“By supporting our highest achievers we can not only improve recruitment and retention, but also enhance the overall environment for their colleagues,” says Williams. “The Duke Med Scholars program is built on the belief that faculty members are not islands. Notable achievements by these scholars will stimulate the intellectual climate throughout Duke.”

Searching Out the Immortality of Blood Stem Cells

Tannishtha Reya, PhD
Assistant Professor, Pharmacology and Cancer Biology

Came to Duke in 2001 from Stanford University.

Tannishtha Reya’s research focuses on the hematopoietic stem cell, from which all the cells in the blood are derived. Like other stem cells, the hematopoietic stem cell can self-renew or differentiate into mature cells. “We are trying to answer the fundamental question of how stem cells make the choice between self-renewal and differentiation,” she says.

An answer to this question could provide insight into the signals that control development of the hematopoietic system and how these signals can become dysregulated in cancer. Understanding the normal regulation of stem cell renewal may also allow development of new approaches to enhance stem cell regeneration and thus have important implications for therapies such as bone marrow transplantation.

Chasing the Genetics Kidney Disease

Michelle P. Winn, MD, HS’92-’99
Assistant Professor, Division of Nephrology and Center for Human Genetics

Came to Duke in 1992 from the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University.

Michelle P. Winn is a board-certified nephrologist whose research interests include hereditary diseases of the human kidney. Her current research focus is familial focal and segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS)—a disorder in the blood-filtering parts of the kidney which, over time, may cause kidney failure. Although most people affected by FSGS do not have a family history of kidney
disease, Winn’s research team has identified more than 100 families from all over the world with two or more family members with familial FSGS. Recently she identified a mutation in the gene Transient Potential Cation Channel 6 (TRPC6) as a cause of familial FSGS in a large family from New Zealand. This was later confirmed by investigators at Harvard.

The ultimate hope is that finding genetic causes of familial FSGS will help with prevention and treatment for the more common sporadic disease, which affects up to 20 percent of patients on dialysis.

Winn was also given the 2004 Diversity Award by Duke University President Richard H. Brodhead in honor of her work as a mentor to minority trainees at all levels in the Department of Medicine.

Helping People Breathe Easily

Paul Noble, MD
Professor of Medicine and Division Chief, Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine

Came to Duke in 2006 from Yale.

Paul Noble’s research focuses on understanding the mechanisms that regulate chronic lung inflammation and fibrosis. In particular he has focused on the role of the extracellular matrix in regulating chronic lung inflammation.

“We are trying to understand how the lung decides to resolve inflammation and what controls unremitting scar tissue formation,” he says. He is particularly interested in interstitial lung diseases (ILD), a group of lung disorders that include Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) a disease that leads to progressive scarring and has no readily apparent cause.

Before moving to Duke, Noble established ILD clinics at Johns Hopkins and Yale.
Currently there are no approved therapies for IPF, and often lung transplantation is offered. Noble is collaborating with others at Duke to investigate the genetic basis of IPF. Duke was recently chosen to act as the data coordinating site for the national IPF Network that will study new treatments for this condition.

The Shape of Cells to Come

Terry Lechler, PhD
Assistant Professor, Cell Biology

Came to Duke in 2006 from the Rockefeller University.

Terry Lechler studies cells in the skin and the lining of the intestine to try to understand how cells’ shape and three dimensional organization work to meet their diverse functions.

Both types of tissues are highly proliferative, meaning they turn over rapidly throughout adulthood. And, both types of tissues are common sites for cancer development. However they have different functions. For example skin cells rapidly proliferate to maintain a protective barrier, while cells in the intestine’s lining must be able to absorb nutrients.

Lechler’s research has shown that skin cells can divide either symmetrically or asymmetrically, and that the asymmetric divisions promote formation of multiple cell layers to form a protective barrier.

The unresolved questions are how the cells achieve asymmetric divisions, and what happens to the tissue when they can’t. At the same time Lechler is investigating how a cell’s function depends on its shape, and what happens when the shape goes awry.

Digging Up the Roots and Stems of Brain Tumors

Robert Wechsler-Reya, PhD
Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology

Came to Duke in 2001 from a postdoctoral position at
Stanford University.

Robert Wechsler-Reya’s research centers on the role of the Sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling pathway in the development of the cerebellum and in the genesis of a brain tumor called medulloblastoma. This is the most common malignant brain tumor in children. Wechsler-Reya’s research has shed light on the early stages of medulloblastoma and has identified some of the genes that are important for tumor formation.

In 2005 his lab discovered that stem cells exist in the cerebellum, raising the possibility that some medulloblastomas could arise from these cells. More recently they reported that fibroblast growth factor, a protein that promotes the growth of many types of cells in the brain, can actually suppress the growth of medulloblastoma cells in mice. This may represent a novel approach to therapy.

Ongoing studies in the lab are aimed at developing new models for medulloblastoma and using them to identify more effective strategies for treating the disease.

Building Better Joints

Farshid Guilak, PhD
Laszlo Ormandy Professor of Orthopedic Surgery, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Director of Orthopedic Research

Came to Duke in 1994 from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Farshid Guilak’s research blends biomedical engineering and a keen interest in functional orthopedic surgery with the goal of building a living human joint replacement. Some recent successes include growing cartilage from fat cells and creating a three-dimensional fabric “scaffold” to improve physicians’ ability to use a patient’s own stem cells to repair damaged joints. Guilak also is studying ways to slow the breakdown of cartilage in patients with osteoarthritis.

He is the director of research for the Division of Orthopedic Surgery and now heads the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Duke University.

Guilak was recently voted the “Outstanding Postdoc Mentor” by Duke’s postdoctoral association, which honored him for managing a 28-person lab, being the editor-in-chief of a major journal, serving as a principal investigator for numerous grants, and yet still having an open-door policy that nurtures those with whom he works.