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Major Gift to Fund Ambitious Health Study

Duke Medicine to use Kannapolis facility to study genes, health and families

Philanthropist David H. Murdock has given Duke a $35 million gift to support a massive biomedical research project at the North Carolina Research Campus (NCRC) in Kannapolis, university president Richard H. Brodhead and Chancellor for Health Affairs Dr. Victor J. Dzau announced Monday.

The gift will fund an ambitious study to link genetic data to disease risk and treatment outcomes among thousands of patients and their families over time. It will establish an understanding of how disease occurs at the molecular level and how it varies from one person to the next, rewriting medical textbooks.

Supporters are calling the M.U.R.D.O.C.K. study (Measurement to Understand the Reclassification of Disease of Cabarrus and Kannapolis) "a Framingham study for the molecular age," in reference to the landmark Framingham, Mass. heart study, that has tracked entire families since 1948, contributing much of what we know about heart disease today.

M.U.R.D.O.C.K. will focus on several high-impact diseases, including cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, hepatitis, osteoarthritis and mental illness.

"We are most grateful for this gift, and David Murdock's vision, because it will bring together scientists from Duke and other North Carolina institutions to address a pressing social need," Brodhead said. "The 'M.U.R.D.O.C.K. study' has the potential to revolutionize health care by finding ways to match treatments to a patient's genetic profile. This research could lead to improved medicine around the world, but I am especially pleased that we will first be able to share our advances with citizens of North Carolina."

State-of-the-art biotechnology housed in the 311,000-square-foot David H. Murdock Core Laboratory at NCRC will be used by physicians and scientists from Duke, the University of North Carolina and the North Carolina Community College System.

"For the first time, we will be able to generate a global database of human health and disease that will provide us the opportunity to clearly transform medicine," Dzau said. "We are honored and tremendously pleased with this gift from Mr. Murdock and share his commitment to advancing the treatment of disease in patients here and around the world."

David H. Murdock, owner and chairman of Dole Food Company Inc. and real estate development company Castle & Cooke Inc., has pledged to invest up to $1 billion in Kannapolis for buildings and research at the NCRC. He is an outspoken advocate of improving global health through disease prevention, better nutrition and innovation in crop science.

"In this life, we have only a few opportunities to make a lasting difference in the world," Murdock said. "I am proud to join with the great researchers at Duke University to seize this opportunity and transform the world's approach to the prevention and treatment of disease. Ever since losing my wife to cancer at a young age, human health has been my driving passion. With my gift to Duke and the work that will be done at the North Carolina Research Campus, this passion becomes the point of departure for a scientific adventure that will save countless lives."

The lead investigator of the M.U.R.D.O.C.K. study is Dr. Robert Califf, director of the Duke Translational Medicine Institute.

"We aspire to be able to give advice to individuals about how to stay healthy and optimally treat illness when it occurs," Califf said. "Combining this information across entire counties using electronic health records, we believe we can provide much better prevention programs for the diseases that are causing death and disability in our society and beyond."

M.U.R.D.O.C.K. investigators will begin their work with Duke's collection of clinical databases and biospecimen repositories, among the largest such collections in the world. Simultaneously, they will begin laying the groundwork for enrolling study volunteers from in and around Kannapolis and surrounding Cabarrus County. Patients enrolled in the study can expect to donate blood samples and other clinical data.

"Thanks to Mr. Murdock, our collective research will enable unprecedented understanding of human disease, and how genetics, geography and environment contribute to health and wellness," Dzau said. "Mr. Murdock's gift is truly a gift to us all."