Stanback Gift Allows Nicholas School to Examine Potential Health Impacts of Environmental Pollution
Alice and Fred Stanback of Salisbury, N.C., donated an additional $2 million in December 2008 to the Nicholas School and the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center, continuing their support of a collaborative research initiative between the two institutions. Duke is one of only two universities in the country that can lay claim to a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center as well as one of the nation’s premier schools of the environment.
Dean William L. Chameides of the Nicholas School says the new gift will support research into how environmental toxins and pollutants affect human health. Of particular interest for the project is pollution from coal ash, such as that created by the TVA ash spill in Tennessee (see story, page 26), or pollution from hog waste lagoons and mountain-top mining.
“We know so very little about potential adverse health effects of chemicals unleashed into the environment as a result of accidents or from the activities of large-scale farming ventures such as hog operations. The Stanback family’s generous support gives us an opportunity to expand our research in an effort to identify health risks and to find sustainable alternatives,” Chameides says.
Stanback served on the Nicholas School’s Board of Visitors for many years, and his son, Brad, currently is on the board. Alice Stanback serves on the Cancer Center’s Board of Overseers. The Stanbacks’ previous gifts to both the Cancer Center and the Nicholas School have been used to create the partnership between the two institutions and provided seed money for nine novel collaborative projects to investigate links between environmental toxins and cancer.
It also provided funding to host major scientific conferences on cancer and the environment.
