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
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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.
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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.
When Duke Cancer Institute Board of Directors Nancy Wright finished chemotherapy treatment for pancreatic cancer, nurses on the fourth floor of Duke Cancer Center brought out a small bell for her to ring to celebrate. Feeling inspired, Wright’s family, including her husband, J. Gordon Wright, who 10 years ago this year survived stage 4 lymphoma, donated the Sound of Hope Bell in her honor. The Wrights stopped by the Seese-Thornton Garden of Tranquility across from Duke Cancer Center to Sound of Hope Bell shortly after it was installed in April 2022. Photo by Les Todd.
In December, the Raleigh Testicular Cancer Foundation (RTCF), established by testicular cancer survivor Matt Cross, made a $10,000 pledge to Duke Cancer Patient Support Program. The funds will be used to supporttherapy and support groups for menas well as thePets at Duke program.This gift will also make possible the naming of an Oak Tree in theSeese-Thorton Garden of Tranquility(adjacent to Duke Cancer Center) in honor of the Raleigh Testicular Cancer Foundation. "During my testicular cancer journey at Duke, I was inspired to form an organization that serves and impacts the lives of men in our city," wrote Cross ina Facebook postfollowing the donation. "Having the opportunity and responsibility to provide a $10,000 donation to the Duke Cancer Center along with the naming of a beautiful Oak Tree is an absolute honor, and everyone at RTCF couldn’t be prouder." Cross is a 37-year-old hockey coach from Toronto who moved to North Carolina about a decade ago. On Christmas Day 2019, he was unexpectedly diagnosed with stage 2b testicular cancer. One year later — following surgery to remove one testicle, nine weeks of intensive chemotherapy, and a second invasive surgery to remove tumorous lymph nodes in his stomach — he showed no further signs of cancer. That's when heannounced the launchof his foundation, a non-profit to raise awareness about testicular cancer, provide preventative education about the disease, and support patients, caregivers, and survivors across the City of Oaks (Raleigh) and beyond. Testicular cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men aged 15 to 35; striking 10,000 men each year. One in 250 men being will be diagnosed with testicular cancer at some point in their lifetime. "With early detection, testicular cancer has an extremely high survival rate, so it's our vision that young men and women become educated on the importance of regular self-checks," said Cross, who was treated at Duke Cancer Center Raleigh by medical oncologistSundhar Ramalingam, MD, and surgical oncologistThomas Longo, MD."We also aim to break the stigma around men's health by creating a community for men to feel empowered through their physical and mental health challenges. We are determined to give back and serve the community that was there for me and my family during the most challenging season of our lives." Cross' foundation (RTCF) administers a peer support program that reaches Duke and UNC testicular cancer patients and also provides financial assistance to patients. For more information about the foundation, visitwww.CheckYourAcorns.org
Peggy Watson Alexander, 73, is an early riser. “Listen, five or six o'clock, sometimes four o'clock, it's like, “Okay, what are we going to do this morning,” she laughed. “My husband Lovest is not a morning person. I don't even know how we've stayed together all these years, because he definitely does not like getting up early in the morning, but I do, I enjoy it.” It's Peggy's nature to always be on the move. Years ago, when she worked at North Carolina Central University (NCCU), she and a colleague would go to work extra early in the morning just so that they could walk around campus before they started their day. “We did that for many, many years,” recalls Peggy. “You’re not only walking to heal the body, but the world is at peace early in the morning… And it helped me to be at peace with myself.”
In 1988, Nancy Wright successfully beat breast cancer. But at the time, she didn’t know any other cancer survivors. “Nobody talked about cancer back then. I realize just how uneducated I was about cancer in general,” she says. Her mother-in-law, who was a member of a group that existed at the time called the Duke Cancer Institute (DCI) Citizens Advisory Council, arranged for a two-time breast cancer survivor to speak to a group near Wright’s home in Lexington, NC. Shortly after that, in 1994, Wright joined the DCI Citizens Advisory Council, then later the DCI Board of Advisors. She found it exciting and educational to hear from other survivors and cancer researchers. “The council encouraged us to be advocates and to write letters to our legislators asking for increased funding for cancer research,” she says. “That was my first foray into political activism.” Over the years, Nancy and her husband Gordon have been loyal supporters of research at DCI and at the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke, as well as the Duke Marine Lab. Nancy began thinking of herself as someone who advocated for others with cancer. Patients should ask lots of questions about their care, and they should expect answers, she says. She advocated for her husband as he successfully fought lymphoma with Duke’s help, and she has advised countless friends and family. She has always told her friends to go to Duke for cancer care because of the access to the latest evidence-based treatments and new therapies available through clinical trials. “If not Duke, go to one of the three National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers in North Carolina. We’re fortunate to have three. Some states don’t have any,” she says.
Mallori Thompson, administrative director of Cancer Support and Survivorship at Duke, keeps a coin-sized metal angel at her desk. When she feels frustrated, she rubs it. “It reminds me of why I’m doing what I’m doing,” she says. The angel was a gift from Liz Menges, whose son Bobby Menges was diagnosed with cancer for the third time in 2016 when he was 19 years old and a freshman at Duke University. Thompson met Bobby only once, in 2017, for an hour. But their conversation shapes what she does to this day.
After a scientific meeting in New Hampshire in 2017, breast cancer researcher Donald McDonnell, PhD, met his wife, Mary, in Maine for a week of vacation. Sitting at a secluded inn on Anne’s Point, McDonnell, Co-leader of the Women’s Cancer Research Program at the Duke Cancer Institute, couldn’t stop thinking about what he had heard at the meeting. He couldn't shake the thought that he and everyone else had been taking the same general approach to treating estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer for more than 30 years. What many breast cancer drugs have in common is that they stop production of the hormone estrogen or block its effects. Over the years, researchers have gotten better and better at developing anti-estrogen drugs, which interfere with the estrogen receptor in the cancer cell. Some bind to the estrogen receptor in place of the hormone, while others bind and "twist the receptor into an unnatural shape," McDonnell says. "The cell thinks it's a broken protein, then eats it.” McDonnell’s own lab has had a role in the development of the majority of these drugs (see “A Bench-to-Bedside Story). That is no small feat: for many patients, the treatments hold the cancer at bay. In fact, in 2020, McDonnell was recognized with the Susan G. Komen Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction in Basic Science, the organization's highest scientific honor, for his contributions to improving understanding of estrogen receptor signaling, leading to development of novel endocrine therapies for breast cancer that is positive for the estrogen receptor. But sitting there in Maine in 2017, looking at the calm water, McDonnell decided that he could do better. “I decided that I had to get off the path I was on,” McDonnell says. "My group has done as good a job as we could possibly do developing drugs to stop the growth of breast tumors. What I want to do now is eradicate them." That decision has led McDonnell, the Glaxo-Wellcome Professor of Molecular Cancer Biology, to shift from “studying the breast cancer cell in a vacuum” to looking at therapies in the context of the immune system. Early findings from his team of collaborators show promise for finding treatments that are more targeted and effective than ever before.
It takes all of us—scientists, physicians, nurses, donors, volunteers, patients, and families—to defeat an enemy as formidable as cancer. Heather Paradis fits into many of those categories—nurse practitioner, donor, volunteer, and caregiver of a family member. I know you will be inspired by the story of how she is using all of her experiences to help others. In this issue of Breakthroughs, you will also learn about a $3.5 million grant that Duke Cancer Institute (DCI) has received from the National Cancer Institute to develop new ways to understand why certain cancers are more common and more aggressive among some populations. This grant builds on DCI’s long-standing efforts in health disparities, some of which was previously funded by a DCI Pilot Grant and grants from the V Foundation for Cancer Research and the Lung Cancer Initiative of North Carolina. When you hear good news about large federal grant awards, what often isn’t mentioned is the years of work the researchers devoted to gathering enough data to win them. That early work is where philanthropy often plays a key role. You’ll also read here about the latest in new treatments for breast cancer, even for advanced disease. One such new treatment now in clinical trials, lasofoxifene, had made it to the clinic only because of the inspiration and work of several dedicated Duke trainees and scientists. Progress like this wouldn’t be possible without all of us doing our part. Will you please join us?
As the COVID-19 pandemic shines a light on health disparities, efforts to find new ways to reduce them get a boost. Lung cancer is responsible for the greatest number of cancer deaths each year in the United States and in North Carolina, and African Americans carry a disproportionate share of this burden. African Americans are more likely to be diagnosed with lung cancer and more likely to die from it, compared to White people. Stomach cancer is not as common, but the disparities are worse. Nationwide, people of color are twice as likely to develop stomach cancer. In seven counties served by the Duke Cancer Institute (DCI), the incidence of stomach cancer among African Americans is three to four times that of Whites. Black people are also two-and-a-halftimes as likely to die of stomach cancer than Whites, which is the biggest mortality disparity of any cancer in the United States. A group of researchers at the Duke Cancer Institute (DCI) is working to change those statistics, and a new federal grant is giving them a big boost. “This effort is part of the overall global initiative across Duke to address health disparities and across DCI to address cancer health disparities,” says Steven Patierno, PhD, professor of medicine and deputy director of the Duke Cancer Institute. Patierno is principal investigator of the grant, which supports two projects—one relating to lung cancer, and the other to stomach cancer. “Both projects will produce information that can influence and change clinical paradigms,” Patierno says. The grant, an Exploratory Grant (P20) from the National Cancer Institute to develop a Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE), is intended to help establish the necessary foundation to grow a program capable of winning a larger Specialized Center (P50) SPORE grant. At that point, the program would be expanded to address disparities in other types of cancers.
Postdoctoral fellow Binita Chakraborty, PhD, was intrigued: in published analyses of large numbers of patients with melanoma (skin cancer) treated with an immunotherapy that is becoming standard of care, the treatment worked better in men than in women. “There may be multiple reasons why the response may be different between males and females,” she says. “But one of the biggest differences that stands out was circulating estrogen levels. Estrogen levels are much higher in females than males.” As a breast cancer researcher, Chakraborty knows a bit about estrogen. When she told her mentor, Donald McDonnell, PhD, that she wanted to explore what was really behind this connection, he told her to run with it. Her findings are leading to a Duke clinical trial in the works that may make immunotherapy work better for people with melanoma, as well as other cancers. New to studying skin cancer, Chakraborty knew just who to call—Duke physician-scientist Brent Hanks, MD, PhD, who treats patients with melanoma and studies the disease. Hanks helped her establish tumor cell lines and mouse models that mimic humans with melanoma. The mice have mutations that are present in up to 70 percent of people with the disease—a mutation in a protein called BRAF and a deletion in a different protein known as PTEN. In all the tests that Chakraborty did with these mice, estrogen increased cancer growth. But not in experiments with isolated tumor cells in culture dishes. “When we cultured the tumor cells, then put in estrogen, they were not growing faster or doing anything,” Chakraborty says. “None of these tumor cells themselves were actually responding to estrogen.” That told her that the estrogen must be influencing something in the tumor “microenvironment” – the community of cells that surrounds the tumor and nurtures its growth. “The tumor tries to hijack the environment around it to help itself grow faster,” Chakraborty says. To find out how estrogen is making melanoma worse, she did experiments in a mouse that doesn’t have a functional immune system. In those mice, whether she treated with estrogen or not, the tumor growth stayed about the same. “That got us to hypothesize, okay, estrogen must be affecting the immune cells in the microenvironment,” she says. “The tumor is growing fast in response to estrogen only when the immune cells are present.” The tumor microenvironment contains many different types of immune cells, but Chakraborty found that in melanoma, estrogen particularly affects one type—macrophages. She explains that normally there is a balance between “good” macrophages, which can help alert T cells to a tumor so they can kill it, and “bad” macrophages, which help a tumor grow by promoting blood vessel growth and impairing T cell function. In mice with melanoma, estrogen shifts the balance toward the bad macrophages. Chakraborty shared these findings with Scott Antonia, MD, director of the Duke Cancer Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, to get his perspective as a clinician. He was immediately interested. Unbeknownst to Chakraborty, Antonia had been studying lung cancer patients who had stopped responding to an immunotherapy called a PD-1 inhibitor. In these patients, “bad” macrophages were increased in proportion to “good” macrophages. Just like in Chakraborty’s mice with melanoma. So, Chakraborty did some experiments in mouse models of non-small-cell lung cancer. She found that estrogen increased “bad” macrophages in lung cancer too. Based on these results, Antonia is now writing a clinical trial to combine a newer anti-estrogen drug used to treat breast cancer with a PD-1 inhibitor, in patients with melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer, and gastric (stomach) cancer. He hopes that inhibiting estrogen will improve patient responses to this type of immunotherapy. “Binita is firing on all cylinders,” McDonnell says. Even while she and her husband, a scientist at UNC-Chapel Hill, juggle homeschooling their six-year-old son during the COVID-19 pandemic, she is having many of the early successes that can prepare her for becoming a faculty member. And McDonnell is thrilled. “I still get a buzz out of publishing papers, but I get a much bigger buzz out of seeing the next generation of cancer researchers succeed and get on their way,” he says. DISCLOSURES: Donald McDonnell, PhD, is involved in the company developing the drug that will be used in the clinical trials mentioned in this story. This article appeared in the Winter 2021 issue of Breakthroughs magazine. Breakthroughs is produced twice yearly by Duke Cancer Institute Office of Development.
For 27 years, Heather Paradis, MSN, a 1995 graduate of Duke University’s Master of Science in Nursing Program, cared for cancer patients at Duke University Hospital as a hematology-oncology nurse practitioner. As she saw many patients fighting the disease, she had no idea that she would one day be on the other side of cancer care. What she learned when she visited that other side is now helping others who have been touched by cancer. In September 2016, Paradis’ husband of two years, Eric Paradis, went for his annual physical and had routine blood tests. The results indicated an elevated white cell count. “At first we thought it was just a reaction to poison ivy exposure, because Eric had cleared the area on which we started building our new house,” Heather says.
After a diagnosis in 2011 of metastatic breast cancer—cancer that has spread beyond the breast and to distant organs—Katrina Cooke has already had many more years with her two sons—now 12 and 14—than she ever thought possible. When she was diagnosed, the statistics she read told her that most people with her diagnosis live only an additional year or two. But a combination of treatments, including surgery, targeted treatments like herceptin, and anti-estrogen therapies, worked for her. In December 2012, she was declared to have “no evidence of disease.” While experiencing many ups and downs since then, she has used that “extra time” to become a professional speaker, peer mentor, and advocate. She became a peer mentor with the American Cancer Society and in 2017 joined the Duke Cancer Institute Oncology Patient Advisory Council (OPAC), a volunteer program that gives Duke cancer patients and their caregivers an opportunity to provide their perspective on the patient experience and offer recommendations on how to enhance it. Since 2018, she’s served as community co-chair of the group. In June of 2020, a spot was found on her rib. Bone can be tricky to biopsy, making bone metastasis difficult to confirm. She is working with Duke interventional radiologist Alan Sag, MD, and medical oncologist Kelly Marcom, MD, on further diagnosis and treatment.
In 2016, Duke employee Brandy Chieco was a new mom with a three-month-old baby boy when her own mom, Brenda Brooks, was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma, which tends to arise in the joints. Brooks spent two years receiving treatment from a team of doctors at Duke Cancer Institute. “The team was just so amazing and supportive,” Chieco says. “They did everything they could.” But Chieco’s mom passed away from the disease on February 23, 2018, just two days after Chieco’s birthday. “She was my everything,” Chieco says. She and her mom shared a love of music, and they attended a concert together just a few months before her mom died. “The cancer was in her hip,” Chieco says. “She couldn’t stand for very long, but we still had a great time. I remember thinking that I needed to soak up every moment, because I just knew we wouldn't have that again.” “I would never wish for anyone to have to see someone that they love so deeply go through something so horrible,” Chieco says. “But at the same time, those two years were transformative for me. I learned so much from her about strength and resilience in that time, and it made me who I am now.” Just like the doctors at Duke were there for her mom, Chieco now wants to be there for others who will face the same disease. “Sarcomas are so rare, and it's such an aggressive form of cancer,” she says. “There’s so much research that still needs to be done to understand it. The only thing I could think to do to help heal my own pain and honor my mom was to give back in some small way because no one should have to go through what she went through.” Chieco’s support is a constant for DCI because she gives monthly through the Hero for Hope program. “I feel a very, very deep connection to Duke now, more than ever before," she says.