Duke Kannapolis News

A Duke COVID-19 study tracking the pandemic in Cabarrus County is contributing data to a statewide research network monitoring the coronavirus in sewer systems to help inform the public health response in North Carolina.

KANNAPOLIS, N.C.—With an enthusiastic response, more than 1,300 people have enrolled in the MURDOCK Cabarrus County COVID-19 Prevalence and Immunity (C3PI) Study since June 9, including 300 participants co-enrolled in a testing cohort.

KANNAPOLIS, N.C.—Duke’s MURDOCK Study has launched a COVID-19 research project to follow the health of hundreds of North Carolina volunteers for several months. The study will also test a sub-group for COVID-19 infection and potential immunity to the novel coronavirus that causes the disease.

In the midst of a global pandemic, Andy Yoos feels grateful and a little surprised that he can participate in health research studies through a new Duke registry based in Kannapolis.

With a grateful nod to the past and a bright eye on the future, the Duke Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) officially opened its expanded space Wednesday on the North Carolina Research Campus. 

Duke doubled its presence on the campus to 10,100 square feet, all of it home to the Translational Population Health Research Center, or “TransPop.”

In conjunction with the 10^th anniversary of the first participant enrolled in the landmark MURDOCK Study, the Duke CTSI Translational Population Health Research group has announced plans to double its clinical research space at the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis.

Duke recently kicked off the third year of the Project Baseline Health Study, reaching the midpoint of the study as Duke CTSI sites in Durham and Kannapolis began welcoming back participants for their third on-site visit.

So, you think aging starts at 65? Think again. Physical decline often begins when people enter their 50s, according to data from the Physical Performance Across the Lifespan Study (PALS), a collaboration between the MURDOCK Study and Duke Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center.

Ten years to the day after she became the first participant in the MURDOCK Study, Bobbie Beam returned to the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis on Saturday, Feb. 16 to celebrate the first decade of the landmark Duke CTSI study.

“It’s a wonderful thing,” said Beam, a retired nurse who joined hundreds of MURDOCK Study participants and community partners at the celebration. “I’m happy to be back.”

It took Summer Goodson, PhD, nearly a year to find six men genetically qualified to participate in a sperm function study at the UNC Nutrition Research Institute (NRI) in Kannapolis.

Male fertility is still a sensitive subject, said Goodson, a post-doctoral research associate at the NRI, making it tough to rely on traditional recruitment methods like fliers and advertisements.