Duke Cancer Institute is purpose-built to break down traditional barriers to rapid innovation and novel treatments. Our collaborations foster original discoveries and translate them into new treatments with unprecedented rapidity. But we are at a tipping point — the more we can do, the more we become a model for what is possible — a way to end cancer. Your combined contributions make an indelible mark against cancer.
With your help, we can give the world a re-imagined vision of how to defeat the most relentless enemy of our generation. Explore the many ways you can partner with us.
You can donate your gift online or mail in your gift. To mail your gift, please download and print this form and mail it to:
Duke Cancer Institute Development Office
300 W. Morgan Street, Suite 1000
Durham NC 27701
Office: 919-385-3120
Please contact us if you'd like to host an event to raise funds and awareness for the Duke Cancer Institute.
Create a Fundraising Event and Personal Fundraising Page
Whether you sing, race cars, ride motorcycles, make fabulous lemonade, cycle, or walk, you can make a difference when you unite your passion with your commitment to fund cancer research at Duke Cancer Institute. Create a personal fundraising page for your efforts, then encourage your friends and colleagues to join you in your quest to move research forward.
Attend a Charitable or Benefit Event
Duke Cancer Institute patients, caregivers, faculty, staff, and friends organize fun, inspirational events every year to increase awareness and raise funds for cancer research. Your support and participation can make a difference for all those with cancer. Here is a sampling of our annual events.
The Center provides cancer support and survivorship services to patients and their families. Many of the services are offered at no cost to patients or their families, We want to ensure access to critical services for all who need them.
You can leave a lasting legacy at the Duke Cancer Institute by making a planned gift through your will or retirement plan or a gift that provides income and tax savings. This is one of the most meaningful ways to make a substantial impact at the Duke Cancer Institute. Donors may make a planned gift to benefit the cancer clinician from whom they received care in the following ways:
For additional questions regarding giving opportunities to Duke Cancer Institute, please email us at dcidevelopment@duke.edu or call 919-385-3120.
Read the current and past issues of BreakThroughs Magazine.
The Shingleton Society honors the generosity of donors who have made a gift of $1,000 or more during our fiscal year, which runs July 1 through June 30. The impact of this philanthropy is significant as Duke Cancer Institute continues its quest to extend and improve the lives of all people with cancer.
Debra Taylor
Acting Assistant Vice President, Duke Cancer Institute and Duke Children's Development
Send Email
Duke Cancer Institute Office of Development
300 W. Morgan Street, Suite 1000
Durham, NC 27701
Phone: 919-385-3120
Yes. Please use this link to Make a Gift online or mail this donation form with your gift to the address above.
Please contact Sharon White, Senior Director of Leadership Annual Giving, or call 984-227-1410.
Yes. Duke will send you a tax receipt either by email or letter.
Learn how to make a gift of stock.
Duke's tax ID# is 56-0532129.
You can learn more at Duke Health Giving. If you need more information, please contact Suzanne Ferrero, Esq., Senior Executive Director of Planned Giving for Duke Health at 518-852-2339.
Use this link to create a personal fundraising page and learn how to host an event. Or please contact Susan George James at 919-385-3126.
Please contact Susan George James at 919-385-3126.
Please use the following language in obituaries to direct memorial gifts:
In lieu of flowers, please send donations in memory of {NAME} to Duke Cancer Institute at 300 W. Morgan Street, Suite 1000 Durham, NC 27701
Visit Giving to Duke to learn if your company has a matching gift relationship with Duke. For more information, contact Randall Byrd at 919-684-2338.
The Duke Cancer Institute Development Board of Advisors assists Duke Cancer Institute in its mission to harness breakthrough discoveries that drive global advances in treatments and cures. Board members support Duke Cancer Institute as knowledgeable advocates, passionate ambassadors, and generous donors.
Please contact the DCI Development Office at 919-385-3120 to learn about the Board of Advisors nomination process.
Duke is very much a part of Krista Patterson AB’03, JD’06, LLM’06, and Jonathan Wigser, MBA’94’s personal and volunteer life. They got engaged and married at Duke, and between the two of them hold four Duke degrees and have served on five councils and boards. In honor of their deep connection to Duke, the couple has made a planned gift commitment of their estate to be split equally between the School of Medicine, Duke Cancer Institute, Duke Children’s, and Fuqua School of Business. “When we sat down to do our planning, the gift was a natural fit for us,” said Patterson. “We have so much involvement with Duke and with these specific aspects of the university.” Wigser added, “All are institutions that we’ve seen demonstrate incredible success, incredible professionalism, and incredible care and empathy for the people they take care of.” Continue Reading at Giving to Duke Health
Duke University School of Medicine Dean and Executive Vice President for Health Affairs Mary Klotman, MD, and Duke Cancer Institute (DCI) Executive Director Michael Kastan, MD, PhDinvited Pathology Chair Jiaoti Huang, MD, PhD and Duke School of Medicine Eleanor Easley Distinguished Professor Daniel George, MD, to present together to a joint meeting of the School of Medicine Board of Visitorsand the DCI Board of Advisors on Fri., Oct. 13, 2023. These leaders in the Department of Pathology (Huang) and the DCI Center for Prostate and Urologic Cancers (George) — both with extensive expertise and national recognition in the field of prostate cancer research — highlighted the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration in advancing basic, translational, and clinical research in this area, which resonated well with the Boards. CONTINUE READING
Duke Cancer Institute (DCI) completed its celebration of five decades of life-changing discovery and care with a black tie event on Saturday, October 14, 2023. The evening's finale unveiled the total raised for cancer research and care during DCI's anniversary time frame: more than $86 million, including $32.7 million in planned gifts. More than 225 guests attended the event, which alone raised $100,000. Hosted by DCI Executive Director Michael Kastan, MD, PhD, the event featured inspiring stories from several cancer survivors, a guest appearance by former Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, and a performance by award-winning actress, singer, and philanthropist Kristin Chenoweth.
THIS FALL, WE WRAP UP OUR CELEBRATION OF DUKE’S 50 YEARS of transforming cancer discovery and care as a comprehensive cancer center. This issue of Breakthroughs highlights how we have revolutionized the field of stem cell transplant and improved outcomes for people with blood cancers. This field has also set the stage for promising new cancer-fighting immunotherapies, and as we look to the future, we envision more patients benefiting from the ability to engineer cells to make them better cancer killers and to target them to each individual. These are just a few of the innovations that you have made possible. You’ll also see featured in this issue a milestone approval of a new drug for advanced breast cancer, as well as one of our efforts to expand breast cancer care to our surrounding communities. I want to thank you — our donors and friends — for your continued partnership. Your willingness to stand beside us in the fight against cancer motivates us to continue pushing boundaries to discover, develop, and deliver tomorrow’s cancer care...today. Michael B. Kastan, MD, PhD Executive Director, Duke Cancer Institute Professor of Pediatrics William and Jane Shingleton Professor, Pharmacology and Cancer Biology
For decades, bone marrow transplantation has saved the lives of patients with blood cancers or other inherited or acquired bone marrow diseases. But today, it’s helping more people than ever because medical advances have made the procedure feasible for more patients. Bone marrow is spongy tissue in our bones that houses the blood stem cells that give rise to red blood cells, platelets, and the workhorses of the immune system, white blood cells. In a bone marrow transplant, stem cells from healthy bone marrow or blood are infused into a patient to do the work of producing blood cells. Patients with certain blood cancers like lymphoma may need a transplant if the chemo or radiation necessary to kill their cancer also kills their bone marrow. In other cases, the recipient’s bone marrow stem cells may be producing blood cells, but those cells aren’t up to the task of recognizing and killing cancer and need to be replaced with stem cells from a healthy donor. The transplanted cells can come from the patient (collected ahead of time) or from a donor. In the past, patients in need of a transplant had to have a matched donor, meaning that recipient and donor had the same immunologic proteins, called HLA. Otherwise, the donor cells would launch an immune attack on the recipient’s body. Over the last few decades, researchers have made significant progress in discovering how to perform transplants using donated cells that aren’t a perfect match. Furthermore, stem cells can now be harvested not just from bone marrow but from blood and umbilical cord. “More patients can benefit from transplantation now because there are more donor options,” said Edwin Alyea, MD, the chief medical officer of the Duke Cancer Institute. “And we can now offer reduced intensity transplants, with lower-dose chemotherapy, to patients who were previously not eligible because of age or other medical problems.”
In 2006, 12-year-old Kameron Kooshesh temporarily moved from California to Durham with his parents so that he could get a bone marrow transplant with Duke’s Joanne Kurtzberg, MD. He had just undergone three years of chemo for acute lymphocytic leukemia, and his cancer had returned. His mom researched pediatric bone marrow transplant programs nationwide and chose Duke for her son. Kooshesh quickly bonded with Kurtzberg and others on his team, from physicians to nurses to case managers. “They knew me and my family so well,” he said. “We trusted them as we would a family member. Duke felt like my home.” Kooshesh’s bone marrow transplant initially went well, but he developed severe graft versus host disease (GVHD) that didn’t respond to standard treatment. Kooshesh knew of some other kids who had died from GVHD and wondered if the end had come for him. >Kurtzberg was aware of a drug that might help, but it was still in clinical trials. She won a compassionate-use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. “Just a couple of infusions of this drug, and I was cured,” he said, “truly cured.” Kooshesh believes he wouldn’t have gotten that drug if he’d been treated at another institution. “Dr. K. is absolutely unbelievable,” he said. “She has a mastery of basic science and clinical and translational medicine that few others have.” Kooshesh graduated from Harvard Medical School in 2022 and is now a resident in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. He plans to devote his career to improving stem cell transplants and reducing GVHD. “I now do the exact kind of research that served as the basis for the drug that saved my life,” he said.
Hannah Woriax, MD, assistant professor of Surgery, joined Duke in 2021, settling in her hometown of Pembroke, North Carolina, after completing residency at Virginia Tech’s Carilion School of Medicine and fellowship at the University of Alabama Birmingham. She returned to North Carolina with the goal of establishing a means of care and research for breast cancer patients in rural North Carolina communities. She practices at both the Gibson Cancer Center in Lumberton and the Scotland Cancer Treatment Center in Laurinburg, both part of the Duke Cancer Network. “The median income in this area is about $35,000, so quite a few patients do not have access to a full-time vehicle, and most people live at least 15-20 minutes away from wherever they’re being seen,” Woriax said. She works to establish a rapport with both her patients and her staff, communicating the importance of working with and around the patient’s means and abilities. Woriax’s journey into medicine was kick-started by watching her grandfather, former Navy corpsman and family medicine physician Frank Woriax, MD, who was the first Native American to graduate from the Duke University School of Medicine. The junior Dr. Woriax learned from her grandfather, whom she affectionately refers to as “papa,” the importance of giving back to their home community of rural and native North Carolinians. “I came home to practice here because I knew that our patients deserve just as much access to care as the patients that live in more urban areas. And I can be a voice for our patients in a different space,” Woriax said, emphasizing her own credibility to both her patients and the support of the Duke Health system. “I work here, I grew up here, and I live here now. I understand the way of life and challenges on a different level.” For Woriax, it is also important that care providers understand the historical nature of patient education in rural areas, particularly the lasting distrust for the medical community among the Native American and Black populations. “A lot of people here still see no difference in how we currently practice medicine and how experiments were conducted only decades ago,” she said. “So for me, for breast cancer patients specifically, I need to educate my patients on what their options are and why they would benefit from things like genetic testing, without any negative or malicious intent.” Being Lumbee herself helps Woriax further establish credibility and trust with her patients, several of whom have known her since she was a child. “I long for those meaningful and long-term relationships with my patients and their loved ones,” Woriax said. “I tell my patients every time I meet them, ‘Don’t worry, you won’t lose me. We’re in each other’s lives now.’” Woriax said that she hopes the Lumberton and Scotland locations will serve as prototypes for additional programs in the future. “Our goal is to identify where these gaps are and try to build a bridge for patients in a way that’s meaningful for them and long lasting and sustainable for the community.”
Ovester Grays, athletic director and head women’s basketball coach at Hillside High School in Durham, North Carolina, was diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma in 2019. Through his nine months of treatment, his entire care team at Duke reassured him. “I was confident about the facts, but the emotional and the mental was nurtured every single step of the way. And it changed my life,” he said. “I’ve told my family if I’m every seriously sick, take me to Duke Hospital. They’re some of the best trained medical treatment personnel in the world. So they mean the world to me.”
When Alexa Balthazar was diagnosed with leukemia at age 28, she ultimately needed a bone marrow transplant. Knowing that her transplant physician, Mitchell Horwitz, MD, had a plan was very encouraging, but she still faced a whirlwind of emotions. Teen and Young Adult Oncology Program nurse navigator Jackie Balliot, BSN, RN, OCN, was there to help. She made several referrals, including connecting Alexa to medical family therapist Geoffrey Vaughn, LMFT, ATR. “What you go through is traumatic, and to be able to talk with someone who is not a family member or friend about very serious topics was helpful for me,” Balthazar said. In May 2023, she celebrated her one-year transplant birthday.
Research that originated in a Duke Cancer Institute (DCI) laboratory contributed to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the first new endocrine therapy for breast cancer since 2002, and the only drug designed to target mutations in estrogen receptor 1 (ESR1). Donald McDonnell, PhD, associate director For translational research at DCI and the Glaxo-Wellcome Distinguished Professor of Molecular Cancer Biology, directed the research team that led to the development of elacestrant (Orserdu, StemlineTherapeutics, Inc). The new therapy, a selective estrogen receptor down-regulator (SERD), is indicated for the treatment of postmenopausal women or adult men with estrogen-receptor-positive/HER2-negative ESR1-mutated advanced or metastatic breast cancer who have been treated unsuccessfully with at least one previous endocrine therapy. The FDA approved the therapy in January 2023.
After more than 30 years as a medical oncologistin her thriving practice in Newport News,Virginia, 1978 Duke University School of Medicinegraduate Elizabeth Harden, MD, sees cancer turninginto more of a chronic disease. “I used to have ashort relationship with patients. Now I have patientswho I’ve been seeing for 15 or 20 years who aredoing great,” she said. Harden’s husband, surgical oncologist RichardHoefer, DO, FACS, added, “If we can’t cure it, wecan contain it.” Harden sees her mentors and friends at Dukeas partners in that success. “Duke has beencomplimentary to us in our life’s work. We recognizethe value of having a very strong academic medicinecommunity as a resource,” she said. As Harden and Hoefer celebrated 35 years ofmarriage, and as Duke Cancer Institute marks 50years as a comprehensive cancer center, the coupleestablished an estate bequest to benefit futurephysicians and researchers.They worked closely with Duke Health’s giftplanning office and Executive Vice President forHealth Affairs and School of Medicine Dean MaryKlotman, MD, to create a gift that will benefitcancer, immunology, and graduate medicaleducation. Their bequest includes endowments for afull professorship and two associate professorships. “We don’t know what the next big frontier isin oncology, so we didn’t want to narrow it toone area,” Harden said. “We take great pride inknowing our estate will be used in this way.”
Duke alum Leslie Graves has known about Duke’s mission to provide life-changing cancer care since she was a teenager. Her father was a childhood friend of legendary cancer surgeon William Shingleton, MD, when the two were growing up in eastern North Carolina. In 1973, when Shingleton became the founding director of Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center (now known as Duke Cancer Institute), Graves’ father, John Graves, a Duke alum, began supporting the effort. “He felt like that it was such an incredible organization, and he talked to me about it,” Graves said. “He was super proud of his childhood friend.” She witnessed firsthand the compassionate care Duke provides when her father was treated for bladder cancer. “He felt they took really great care of him, extended his life, and honored his wishes about his treatment,” Graves said. He sadly lost his battle with the disease in 2009. Graves serves as treasurer of the Fibromalellar Cancer Foundation, and in 2017 she joined the Duke Cancer Institute Board of Advisors. She served as vice-chair for four years, and in 2022 she began serving as chair. In October 2022, Graves received the William W. Shingleton Award, the highest honor given to friends of Duke Cancer Institute.