Editor's note: News Molecules are designed to give readers occasional tidbits of information about the N.C. Research Campus.

By Emily Ford

Salisbury Post

KANNAPOLIS — David H. Murdock will party Thursday night with his friends from Duke University as they officially open their new office at the N.C. Research Campus.

Organizers expect more than 200 guests to fill the old Dress Barn in Cannon Village, which has become the temporary home for the MURDOCK Study and the Duke Translational Medicine Institute, which will run the study.

Murdock gave Duke $35 million last year to launch the long-term medical study that bears his name. The study could start enrolling patients as early as this summer.

All three principal investigators for the study — Dr. Rob Califf, Dr. Geoffrey Ginsburg and Dr. John McHutchison — are expected to attend the gala opening.

Murdock will speak, as well Duke chancellor for health affairs Dr. Victor Dzau and Califf, director for Duke's institute.

Eventually, the study and the institute will have a permanent home near the Core Lab, like the schools in the University of North Carolina system that have branches at the Research Campus.

Construction has not started on Duke University's building.

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