Fall 2026 NQ: Future of Neuroscience: Batoul Darwish

“Future of Neuroscience” is a series of interviews where early career researchers reflect on their career journeys and share thoughts on where neuroscience is headed. It complements the “Leaders in Neuroscience” series featuring current SfN leaders and SfN’s “History of Neuroscience” autobiographies.

Batoul Darwish moved to the U.S. from Lebanon in January 2022 to pursue her dream: doing neuroscience research at Duke University. As a child, she had watched both her grandparents navigate life with progressive neurodegeneration. Her desire to find ways to help her loved ones grew into a lifelong pursuit of trying to understand the brain — a passion that would later guide her through some of life’s most difficult challenges.

“I fell in love with different aspects of neuroscience, but I definitely owe the first spark of curiosity to everything my grandmother and grandfather were dealing with,” said Darwish.

Her graduate work at American University of Beirut (AUB) and postdoctoral work at Duke focused on neuroimmune interactions, but they still connect back to that first spark. “I’m still very much interested in hippocampal neurogenesis, which is a topic that interconnects neuroimmune research and neurodegeneration research,” she said.

During her graduate work, she explored how urinary tract infections (UTIs) interact with the nervous system, and, according to her former advisor, Christopher Donnelly, an assistant professor in anesthesiology at Duke, she made several important contributions to the field.

Darwish discovered that UTIs suppress hippocampal neurogenesis and subsequently negatively impact memory. While pursuing this research, she made another important discovery: fosfomycin, the antibiotic used to treat some UTIs, further suppresses hippocampal neurogenesis.

Donnelly noted these findings may shed light “on why elderly individuals treated for UTIs can sometimes exhibit symptoms like confusion and delirium.”

Beyond Darwish’s scientific contributions, she helped create a supportive and harmonious workplace culture in the lab. “I will never cease to be impressed by her resilience, continued positive spirit, and passion for research” even during moments of immense personal struggle, Donnelly said.

A Deeply Personal Decision, Solidified by Science

In October 2023, after a long day in the lab, Darwish returned home for the evening. But what was supposed to be a restful night was the beginning of a long road of uncertainty. She noticed a lump on her right breast. Her friends and family said it was probably nothing given that she was only 29, but she requested an appointment at Duke’s medical center anyway.

Her friends and family said it was probably nothing given that she was only 29...

“I wasn’t going to get it checked, but I have a very bad family history of breast cancer,” said Darwish.

After her first biopsy, she was diagnosed with breast cancer in situ (stage zero), but MRI results revealed a tumor larger than expected, and doctors updated her diagnosis to stage one.

The doctors at Duke and those she consulted in Lebanon suggested a lumpectomy to remove the tumor, followed by radiotherapy. From there, they would decide whether to recommend chemotherapy based on post-surgery tumor analysis.

They also identified a tumor in the other breast, but the biopsy showed it was benign, so no treatment was recommended. Still, Darwish was concerned.

Just two months before she received her diagnosis, she attended a journal club talk on the paper Loss of p53 drives neuron reprogramming in head and neck cancer, which explored how tumors can hijack neural fibers to promote metastasis.

“Other members of the lab were doing research on neuro-cancer interactions — how the nervous system can promote cancer and sometimes store a memory of that cancer,” she said.

She thought of two of her aunts who had treated breast cancer with lumpectomies followed by chemotherapy. Both were very sick throughout chemo, and after a few years, each died from recurrence. At the time, her cousin who also developed breast cancer was undergoing a hip replacement for complications related to chemo.

This course of treatment can be successful for many people, but her relatives’ experiences worried Darwish. She feared their history could repeat itself given their shared genetics.

The fact that she was thousands of miles away from family also played a role. “I didn’t want to go through [chemo] being abroad, away from my family,” she added.

She kept returning to studies that showed how denervation — removing neuronal connections to the affected organ — may significantly reduce cancer’s proliferation and risk of recurrence.

“That’s the main point that made me decide to do a double mastectomy,” she said.

It was an aggressive approach — one doctors typically don’t immediately recommend. But after she spoke to her care team, they were supportive of the plan.

After about a month and a half of recovery at her parents’ home in Tyre, Lebanon, Darwish returned to North Carolina to pick up where she left off. Her follow-up treatment involves induced menopause and daily pills of an aromatase inhibitor to prevent recurrence.

After the double mastectomy, a more detailed analysis of the tumor revealed it had invaded six millimeters of surrounding tissue. The criterion for chemotherapy is five millimeters. If she had opted for the lumpectomy, she likely would have had no choice but to go forward with chemo.

“I think I made a good decision for me, but every individual has their own case,” said Darwish. “I took different opinions of different doctors before I made my decision.”

Returning Home to War

As she adapted back to life in the lab, a new stroke of uncertainty started to trickle in. “The political situation became very tense between Lebanon and the U.S. There was this period where visas were not being renewed.”

Darwish’s friend, a fellow postdoc, returned to Lebanon to renew her visa at the U.S. embassy, but her application was denied.

In September 2024, two months after returning to North Carolina post-mastectomy, a war erupted in Lebanon, and her family’s home was destroyed. Anticipating her own visa issues and feeling a pull to be with her loved ones, Darwish decided to leave the U.S. on her own terms.

Anticipating her own visa issues and feeling a pull to be with her loved ones, Darwish decided to leave the U.S. on her own terms.

“I didn't visit home for a year and a half and finished my postdoc and then I went back to Lebanon knowing that they're not going to renew my visa,” she said.

Shortly after returning to Lebanon in December 2025, spillover from the war once again displaced Darwish’s family. “This time, I was more comforted that I was with them,” she recalled. They left for Egypt, monitoring the situation and making plans to rebuild their lives. But amid the destruction, Darwish kept her spirits high for the future.

Finding Resilience in Research

Now, Darwish is spending any downtime writing up papers from her time at Duke and AUB and applying for research roles, this time with an eye toward clinical research, potentially in the neuro-oncology field.

“I’m working on a review… summing up the literature about neural interactions and pancreatic cancer,” she said.

She’s dealing with her family’s displacement the same way she dealt with her cancer diagnosis — by keeping her passions top of mind.

“I’ve been through cancer and two wars in the last two years alone,” said Darwish. “[Neuroscience] is my coping mechanism.”