A Century of Discovery: Celebrating Nearly 100 Years of Research in Duke Surgery

Photo above: The “100 Years of Research in Duke Surgery” installation recognizes Duke Surgery's federally funded researchers over a 100-year period. Photo by Scott Behm, Section of Surgical Disciplines.

It’s Valentine’s Day, 1985, and Kent Weinhold, PhD, is in the lab of his mentor Dani Bolognesi, PhD, cycling a series of pharmaceutical compounds through a scintillation counter to measure their effect on retrovirus counts. 

“Everything was in duplicate. The no-drug controls were always hundreds of thousands of counts,” Professor of Surgery Dr. Weinhold recalls. “Most of the drugs stayed at hundreds of thousands of counts. And then there was one, there was a duplicate that came up, that had around 30 counts. My first thought was that I screwed up—that I forgot to add something—so I didn’t get all that excited. But then we were able to repeat it.”  

The research team had just discovered the world’s first treatment for HIV. By July of 1985, just 5 months later after a rapid clinical trial, the first patients at Duke and at the clinical center of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) were receiving HIV treatment.  

For any research facility, this scientific discovery is monumental; for it to happen within a Department of Surgery, is remarkable.  

Back to Basics 

The research infrastructure that existed within Duke’s Department of Surgery in the 1980s was not happenstance—it was the product of a novel approach to surgical training and patient care begun 5 decades earlier by J. Deryl Hart, MD, first chair of the Department of Surgery. From its earliest days, Duke Surgery upheld research as an integral component of its mission.  

Dr. Hart had his own lightbulb moment—if you can forgive the pun—with his discovery of ultraviolet light as a successful means of curbing bacterial growth in operating rooms, which could in turn reduce infection rates.  

This innovation was proof of concept that scientific discovery conducted by clinicians had the potential to revolutionize surgical care in direct and practical ways.  

In 1937, Dr. Hart recruited surgeon Joseph W. Beard, MD, to supervise the Division of Experimental Surgery, a new unit offering a space for collaboration between basic and translational scientists, surgeons, and the rare breed of surgeon–scientists who were skilled in both the laboratory and the operating room.  

Dani Bolognesi, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Surgery, was recruited by Dr. Beard in 1971 to continue the department’s research efforts.

He says the early partnership between surgeons and scientists laid an effective groundwork for future scientific discovery, progressed under the leadership of David C. Sabiston, Jr., MD, who joined Duke Surgery as department chair in 1964. 

“What Dave [Sabiston] did was not only embrace Beard’s laboratory and research, he took that and said, ‘Now I want to grow a real enterprise around the research that we can do in surgery.' He believed that the surgeon was in a unique position because he had hands on the tissue; he understood the disease. What Dave wanted to do was bring science into that equation and begin to grow what I believe was the beginnings of translational research at Duke.” 

- Dr. Dani Bolognesi, Professor Emeritus of Surgery

It Starts with an Idea

Scientific discovery begins with an idea, but to come to fruition, that idea requires proper support and funding. That can be an uphill battle, but today researchers within the Section of Surgical Disciplines have access to a vast infrastructure of administrative support to guide them through the initial processes of refining their aims, identifying budgetary needs, and locating and applying for funding opportunities.

Professor of Surgery and Vice Dean of the Section of Surgical Disciplines Allan D. Kirk, MD, PhD, began the work of expanding research support when he returned to Duke in 2014. As a Duke medical student, surgery resident trained by Dr. Sabiston, and PhD student, Dr. Kirk learned early the competing demands placed upon the surgeon–scientist and the importance of sustaining a strong surgical research program at Duke.  

Welcoming researchers through the proverbial doors of the section’s network of research support is Director of Research Development Lauren Anderson, PhD, who provides strategic guidance to investigators in their proposal development. 

“There are a lot of good ideas out there,” says Dr. Anderson. “For the surgeons to be able to have enough time to explore those ideas demands having a lot of hands working with them, whether it’s lab personnel or administrative personnel. While it’s harder now than it was before to obtain funding, you still don’t want to totally undo an idea solely to find funding—we want to know what funding opportunities are available, what their ideas are, and match those together.”  With more than 20 years of experience in academic research, Dr. Anderson has an intuitive sense of the interests of agencies and sponsors, and a finger on the pulse of constantly changing funding patterns.  

Once a potential funding source is identified, the Section of Surgical Disciplines’ Grants and Contracts team comes onboard to take the reins in fine-tuning and to begin the application process in earnest.  

Melissa Murad, Assistant Director of Research Administration, oversees this involved process. Her team does much of the legwork in calculating budgets and connecting to the research cores within the section as needed—biorespository, clinical trials, data management, and others.  

“Our team gathers the information provided by the faculty member and does a lot of work behind the scenes to create a proposed draft budget,” says Ms. Murad. “We then work closely with the faculty member to review the intricate details and finalize the budget for submission. We review the RFAs [requests for applications] and make sure everything complies from an administrative standpoint. We want to be a one-stop shop for investigators.” 

The support provided by the research administration team allows investigators to focus their effort on their continued research while knowing their developing proposals are in good hands.  

Recognizing 100 Years of Scientific Discovery

Receiving funding is a significant milestone in an investigator’s career. For several years, the Section of Surgical Disciplines’ communications team has partnered with research administration to collect historical data for the creation of a unique installation honoring recipients of federal grants, contracts, and sub-awards.