Division News

Cleaning Hospital Rooms With Chemicals, UV Rays Cuts Superbug Transmissions

A new study from Duke Medicine has found that using a combination of chemicals and UV light to clean patient rooms cut transmission of four major superbugs by a cumulative 30 percent among a specific group of patients -- those who stay overnight in a room where someone with a known positive culture or infection of a drug-resistant organism had previously been treated. 

Meningitis Model Shows Infection’s Sci-Fi-Worthy Creep Into the Brain

A study led by John Perfect, MD, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, is using transparent fish to watch in real time as Cryptococcal meningitis takes over the brain. The resulting images are worthy of a sci-fi movie teaser, but could be valuable in disrupting the real, crippling brain infection that kills more than 600,000 people worldwide each year. 

Fowler part of collaborative research team looking at multidrug resistant bacteria

Vance Fowler, MD, MHS, professor of medicine (Infectious Diseases), is part of a research team funded by Duke Translational Medicine Institute and the Duke CTSA that is exploring the efficacy of beating back multidrug resistant bacteria by using chemical compounds known as LpxC inhibitors. These chemical compounds disrupt the formation of Lipid A in the protective membranes around Gram negative bacteria - a novel way of destroying bacteria.

Perfect awarded 5-year program project grant from NIAID

John Perfect, MD, professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, received notification today from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of a program project award (P01) for his proposal entitled “Transdisciplinary Program to Identify Novel Antifungal Targets and Inhibitors."  This award, effective 6/25/15, will last five years and, with its cores, total $9,277,000.

Duke Human Vaccine Team awarded $5 million to study fungal fever

The Duke Human Vaccine Institute’s Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit has been awarded a $5 million contract from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease to support further research on Valley Fever Pneumonia.

Valley Fever Pneumonia is caused by the fungal pathogens Coccidioides posadasii and Coccidioides immitis, which primarily live in soil. Valley Fever is endemic in certain parts of the southwestern United States, including Arizona and California.