Duke Med Research Teams Vie in STAT Madness
Duke Medical School is rallying support for its research teams competing in the 2026 STAT Madness bracket. The national competition, styled after the NCAA basketball tournament, showcases cutting-edge biomedical research projects from top U.S. institutions.
STAT Madness is an annual online tournament where 64 U.S. universities and research institutes compete in a bracket-style format to have their biomedical discovery crowned the year's most significant. The winner is determined by public voting over six rounds, which began March 2nd and will conclude on April 6th. The 2026 competition features 64 entries from 50 different institutions across the United States. Health and medicine news outlet STAT, which is produced by Boston Globe Media, organizes the event to highlight the most impactful biomedical research from the past year. Four distinct research teams from Duke are in the running this year. One team, led by neurobiologists Diego Bohórquez and M. Maya Kaelberer, discovered a new gut-brain communication system they termed a "neurobiotic sense." Their research, published in *Nature*, identified specialized gut cells that detect bacterial proteins and signal the brain via the vagus nerve. Another Duke team, headed by psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Posner, developed an artificial intelligence model that predicts with 84% accuracy which adolescents are likely to develop severe mental health issues before symptoms become pronounced. A third project, from a team led by biomedical engineer Nenad Bursac, reported the first successful use of gene therapy to repair heart attack damage in non-human primates, a significant step towards human application. The competition is known for its intensity, drawing comparisons to a "science's version of 'Shark Tank'." Baylor College of Medicine secured the top spot in both 2025 and 2024. In 2025, their winning research identified how astrocytes, a type of brain cell, are involved in memory storage and recall. The 2024 champion from Baylor developed a network to monitor all known human viruses circulating in a community by analyzing public wastewater. In 2023, researchers from the NYU College of Dentistry won the competition for their development of a topical gel designed to treat gum disease. Other notable entries in the current 2026 tournament include a new genetic test for ALS, dental floss that tracks cortisol levels, and an AI framework that predicts cellular responses to drugs.
