Anne Purfield, Co-Instructor

Anne has previous taught at the Prairie Scholars Program for Gifted Students. She worked with a team of instructors to create a curriculum based on a bioterrorism attack. Following this experience, she received the Emerging Infectious Disease Training Fellowship. During this fellowship she traveled for several disease outbreaks, including a Mycoplasma pneumoniae outbreak at a mental health institution and the onset of the West Nile Virus outbreak in New York. Currently, she studies malarial drug resistance and is focusing on the development of a new antimalarial drug.

Doug Tilley, Co-Instructor

Doug initially was introduced to pharmagolocy through research involving numerous surgical and molecular biology methods to analyze blood vessel response to injury and pharmacological treatment that would be similar to treating atherosclerosis, the narrowing of blood vessels, in humans. These hands-on experiences and overall excitement of discovery convinced him to enroll in the PhD program in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Queen's University, which eventually led to him coming to Duke to study cell signaling pathways that regulate heart function. As he continues his career in research, Doug hopes to balance this with being able to pass along the knowledge and excitement of pharmacological discovery.

Seun Ajiboye, Teaching Assistant

Seun initially chose a biochemistry concentration, but switched to pharmacology because she wished to see the social application of the concepts she was taught in class. Along with chemistry and biology, pharmacology also deals with ethics, sociology, economics, and policy; such an interdisciplinary approach has inspired her to aspire to someday work in with the pharmaceutical industry. In her spare time she likes to play ultimate frisbee and read.

CJ Morrow, Teaching Assistant

CJ graduated from Duke with a major in biological anthropology and anatomy and a minor in psychology. She has also been trained in Emergency Medicine, and is currently involved in doing EMT-I work in North Carolina, after which she hopes to attend physical therapy graduate school at Duke or UNC. Her two major hobbies are cycling and rock climbing.

Jessica Ngo, Teaching Assistant

Jessica is a major in psychology. Through an honors biology class and a social psychology class, she came to realize that biology and psychology were two of her passions. Her previous research has involved working in a cardiac MRI lab and looking into how well cardiac MRIs predict future bypass surgeries or heart attacks. Outside of academic pursuits, she is part of the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program in which she serves as a mentor for a first grader.

Daniel Edward Frigo, Ph.D., Co-Instructor

Currently, Daniel is a post-doctoral fellow the in the laboratory of Dr. Donald McDonnell in the Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology. His research focuses on two areas: 1) determining the mechanisms of action of anabolic steroids and 2) the development of novel treatments for prostate cancer. Through work in his lab and in collaboration with other labs he uses a combination of cell lines, animal models, and human samples to help convert discoveries in the lab to practical use in the clinic.

Joshua C. Sandquist, Co-Instructor

Joshua is a student in the Ph.D. program in the Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology at Duke University, and he one day hopes to become a professor. Currently he is doing his thesis work on a protein called myosin II, which is most well-known as the protein important for muscle cell contraction. He hopes the implications of his research can be used to develop drugs to prevent tumor cells from metastasizing.

Ashlyn Duke, Teaching Assistant

Ashlyn has spent time tutoring for biology and chemistry courses, mentoring fellow undergraduate Biology students as a member of Beta Beta Beta National Biological Honor Society and volunteering in the Pediatric Playroom at UNC Hospitals, as well as playing multiple intramural sports annually, and cheering on the Tar Heels at most football and men's basketball games. Aside from biology and Spanish, one of her passions is mission work, both in the form of volunteering in the community and elsewhere in the world. Most recently, she was part of a January 2005 mission team to Belize that built a house for an underprivileged Mayan family.

Sarah-Scott Rhodes, Teaching Assistant

Sarah-Scott was born in Wilmington, NC and currently attends the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is majoring in biology with minors in medical anthropology and chemistry. Her future goal is to go to osteopathic school, and becoming an OB-GYN.

Felicia Walton, Teaching Assistant

A double biology and chemistry major, Felicia has won the prestigious Marshall Scholarship for two years of graduate study at the University of Cambridge in England. While at Duke, she has been supported by a number of awards, including a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, a Howard Hughes Research Fellowship, an American Society of Microbiology Research Fellowship and a Trinity College Dean's Summer Research Fellowship. Felicia has also taught and mentored Durham public school students in mathematics during the academic year and summer.