HCA Inc., a leading provider of health care services, has given $1 million to The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, President Richard Brodhead announced Tuesday.
The unrestricted gift is available to provide support in areas determined by the dean and the administration of the university, and could include new facilities, student scholarships and programming, faculty development, equipment or other priorities of the school.
Jack Bovender Jr., chairman and CEO of HCA, is a 1967 graduate of Duke and received his master of hospital administration degree from Duke in 1969. He has served on Fuqua's Board of Visitors since 1993. A 35-year veteran of the health care industry, Bovender has worked at HCA for more than 25 years.
NSF grants Duke $1.88M for sensor network
Duke University environmental scientists have received a five-year, $1.88 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop an advanced wireless sensor network that can measure, model and predict biophysical changes in the forest environment.
The network will help researchers better understand how the growth, survival and reproduction of forest trees are influenced by changes in climate, atmospheric carbon dioxide and other environmental variables that can fluctuate rapidly. Such changes are expected with the ongoing alteration in global climate as increasing carbon dioxide levels from burning fossil fuels cause global warming.
Researchers find origins of a breast cancer
Scientists have discovered that loss of a critical protein in breast cells can initiate a particularly aggressive and often fatal form of cancer called "basal type" breast cancer.
They said their discovery is important for identifying women at increased risk for basal-type breast cancer and for developing new drugs that more effectively target this treatment-resistant cancer. Early detection is particularly important because the disease strikes young women of child-bearing age and typically resists chemotherapy and other front-line drugs, said the researchers from the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Results of the study are published in the Nov. 1, 2005, issue of the Journal of Cell Science. The research was sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, the V-Foundation, the Avon Foundation, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the Charlotte Geyer Foundation.
Book drive fills library in Sri Lanka
A book drive started at Duke in the wake of last year's tsunami has collected more than 15,000 academic journals, textbooks and other books from area schools and national non-profit organizations.
The books will go to universities in Sri Lanka and will be distributed by the country's Social Scientists' Association.
The book drive was organized by Sucheta Mazumdare, professor of history who envisions the book drive as "a first step in academic bridge-building and longtime partnership."
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