The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) has selected Jesse Waggoner, MD, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Dieases at Emory University School of Medicine as one of 16 national recipients of its 2019 Clinical Scientist Development Awards. A panel of distinguished experts in the medical field chose these physician scientists from a pool of 210 applicants through a multistage review process. Each scientist will receive $495,000 over three years.
Waggoner’s selected research project focuses on a new molecular method to predict severe dengue disease in symptomatic patients, titled “Arboviral Antibody Signatures on a Nanoscale Plasmonic Gold Platform to Predict Severe Dengue in Symptomatic Cases.”
“Physician scientists are crucial to the clinical research field because they bring significant insights from their direct interactions with patients from the bedside to the bench,” says Betsy Myers, program director for medical research at DDCF. “For this reason, we are proud to support and protect the time devoted to research by these exceptional physician scientists as they balance their clinical obligations with research work, ultimately giving them greater opportunities to make vital contributions to the field.”
The Clinical Scientist Development Award (CSDA) funds physician scientists who are at the early stages of their profession to help them transition to independent research careers. Faced with the competing demands of both caring for patients and conducting research, physician scientists often experience a more challenging transition to an independent research career than other researchers. Through this award, early-career physician scientists are able to protect and dedicate 75 percent of their professional time towards clinical research. Since 1998, the foundation has awarded more than $144 million in Clinical Scientist Development Awards.
About the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
The mission of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is to improve the quality of people’s lives through grants supporting the performing arts, environmental conservation, child well-being and medical research, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke’s properties. The foundation’s Medical Research Program supports clinical research that advances the translation of
biomedical discoveries into new preventions, diagnoses and treatments for human diseases.