The Helene Fuld Health Trust was established 1935 as a foundation and later became a trust in 1969 in honor of Leonhard Felix Fuld and Florentine Minnie Fuld to support student nurses and nursing education. 

Amid a serious shortage of entry-level nurses, DUSON created an Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) program with what was at that time the largest grant ever awarded to the School—a $6M gift from the Helene Fuld Health Trust. The intensive 16-month program was open to adult learners who had completed an undergraduate degree in another field. Today, the program admits learners who hold undergraduate, graduate, or doctoral degrees and come from a wide array of backgrounds.

Walker, a physiologist was nominated for this honor based on the quality and impact of her intellectual contributions to her work that reshaped scientific thinking within nursing. She said she is honored to receive this award.

Walker, a physiologist, was nominated for this honor based on the quality and impact of her intellectual contributions to understanding how to improve pharmacological treatment of asthma. 

Walker is known nationally for her investigation into the relationship between asthma pathophysiology and G-protein coupled receptor signaling. Walker’s seminal work demonstrated the importance of beta-arrestin protein (βarrestin) function in asthma and identified it as a novel therapeutic target. She said asthma is a chronic disease that affects adults and children and is the most common chronic disease among children.

“Asthma affects 262 million people worldwide and caused 455,000 deaths in 2019. Although effective medications are available, almost half of people living with asthma experience disease worsening over time,” Walker said. “This disease progression disproportionately affects Black, Hispanic, and American Indian/Alaska Native people. Finding new treatments that combat disease progression and understanding why this progression occurs is the priority of my work.” 

Walker continued, “I hope my work will one day lead to changes in therapeutic treatment of asthma that will improve management of the disease and thereby alleviate at least some of the asthma management burden that is disproportionately placed on racially and ethnically diverse communities.”

In her work, Walker discovered that G protein-coupled receptors (cell surface proteins) are regulated by βarrestin in mouse models. Her in vivo studies were groundbreaking and challenged long-held conventions in the field.  She continues to generate new knowledge and expand the understanding of how βarrestin signal regulation in vivo has a direct result of her work, scientists are poised for significant advancements in treating asthma, a common and chronic condition for many.

Walker also has an exceptional record of research grant funding and leadership.  Her work has been consistently funded since 2000 by NIH (NHLBI and NIAID) and industry grants and she has received 6 R01s (3 as PI, and others as co-PI or co-I). The nomination committee said her publication record is equally exceptional.  With over 2600 citations of her publications in highly regarded journals across disciplines, Walker has achieved an H-factor of 26, evidence of a high degree of influence in the scientific community. 

Additionally, she is a sought-after expert and is routinely invited to serve on scientific editorial journal boards and grant review panels.  Further, Walker’s 20-year career in academia includes faculty appointments in both DUSON and the School of Medicine - notably she was an assistant research professor and collaborator of Dr. Robert Lefkowitz’s lab when he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2012.   

She was recently featured in the DUSON Spring/Summer 2023 Magazine on page 20 about her research with using biomarkers to map susceptibility to illness or infection. Walker said one important area that the Biomarker Lab (BML) focuses on is stress. Chronic stress can disrupt physiological homeostasis, increase allostatic load, and reduce physiological resilience. When that happens, one is less able to combat any disease. “People of color (people racially and ethnically diverse) are exposed to a wider variety of stressors, including discrimination, environment, acculturation, and socioeconomic hardship. Thus, stress is thought to be a key underlying component of Social Determinants of Health (SDOH),” Walker said. The BML supports nurse scientists in the collection and analysis of biospecimens, with a focus on stress biomarkers. This objective biomarker data compliment patient reported outcome data collected from participants.

Walker said this combination of information may lead to new ways to study the biological embeddedness of the context in which people live, learn, work, and play on the health of ethnically/racially diverse populations as well as specific ways to assess or treat disease. “Ideally, these stress data could help guide early interventions resulting in prevention of disease,” Walker said. The BML is currently collaborating with Duke Clinical and Translational Science Institute to bring the MURDOCK database to the DUSON BML. “This database contains longitudinal data and biospecimens from over 11,000 racially and ethnically diverse participants. This endeavor will facilitate the opportunity to study the biological embeddedness of SDOH, Walker said.”  

She is a native of Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada and has a 4-year-old dog named Bruno.