Recent Events

2026 Women & Science Dinner
On August 6, 2026, Hope Funds for Cancer Research was privileged to host its annual “Women & Science” lecture and gala dinner at “Rough Point” in Newport. The organization, inspired by Doris Duke’s favorite menus, music, and dress designers, entertained in the spirt of Doris Duke in the 1930s.

Elizabeth Griffin in Pierre Cardin, Cayce Beam in Mary McFaddin, Maya Emmons-Bell in Dior

Prior to dinner, guests heard speakers, who were extraordinary and together interwove the story of the importance of women cancer researchers starting with Marie Curie and of supporters like Doris Duke. Speakers included Hope Funds past Fellows Drs. Maya Emmons-Bell (Yale University), Jordan Krall (MOMA Therapeutics), Bluma Lesch (Yale Medical School) and Alexander Peterson (Scripps); and highlights of the speaking program were Hope Funds Scientific Advisors, Nobel Laureate William G. Kaelin, MD (Harvard University and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) and astrophysicist, the Right Rev. Nicholas Knisely, Episcopal Bishop of Rhode Island. In addition, six Hope Funds Fellows were in attendance, and several alumni. Hope Funds supports these early career scientists, noting that in a scientific career the most transformative work tends to happen early, while a postdoctoral fellow, working at the edge of what’s known, are frequently seeing the thing nobody else has seen yet. Recognizing they need support and mentorship, Hope Funds is willing to bet on them before the world knows they’re worth betting on. Hope Funds alumni have become independent investigators, mentoring the next generation of fellows, with 94% of completed fellowship programs have been published in top-tier journals, and 97% of those fellows have gone on to faculty appointments. Hope Funds is creating a scientific ecosystem, much like Doris Duke did in medicine and the arts.

During her lifetime, and subsequently through the Doris Duke Foundation (DDF), she directed hundreds of millions of dollars towards medical research. Nobel Laureate, Dr. William Kaelin observed at the event how some his early research was supported by Doris Duke and that he did his undergraduate studies at Duke University, which was funded and founded by Doris Duke’s father. Through the DDF’s support, cutting-edge drugs like Casgevy for sickle cell disease have been possible. In honor of Doris Duke’s many contributions to biomedical research, Hope Funds presented the Doris Duke Foundation its Award of Excellence in Philanthropy in 2024.

William G. Kaelin, Jr., MD

The great mansions of Newport like Rough Point were designed to be imposing, grand, and spacious; allowing their owners to entertain in a style that would impress their guests. Begun in 1887 and completed in 1892, Rough Point was originally designed in the English Manorial Style by the noted Boston architectural firm Peabody & Stearns. Named for a magnificent outcropping of rock jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean near the end of famed Bellevue Avenue, this red sandstone property was originally built for Fredrick William Vanderbilt for his family to enjoy summers by the sea. Rough Pont was later purchased by James Buchanan Duke, a tobacco magnet. In 1922 the mansion underwent serious renovations at the hands of Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer. Two additional wings were added to the already giant home, expanding it to 105 rooms in total. Trumbauer neatly fit the new design to be compatible and complimentary to the original structure resulting in the completed building presenting as a unified structure.

Dinner in Great Hall

In 1925 James Buchanan Duke died at age 68 and ownership of Rough Point and his many other properties fell to his only child, Doris Duke, who was only 12 years old at the time. Doris Duke loved Rough Point from her early childhood until her eventual passing at age 80 in 1993. Doris was gifted not only with great wealth but was also tall, beautiful and athletic, and cut quite the social figure during her youth, when she was widely known as “the richest girl in the world.” Doris Duke loved not just Rough Point but Newport as well. She spent her summers there and was central in founding and financing the Newport Restoration Foundation (NRF), which owns, maintains and preserves dozens of Colonial Era structures in Newport, which are actively used.

For the evening of the Hope Funds gathering, the Grand Hall was the site of a banquet dinner, and guests enjoyed meaningful dinner conversation with the background sounds of live jazz, a favorite of Doris Duke. Guests were joined by leaders of the medical philanthropic community, business and medicine leaders from New York and Boston, and long-standing Hope Funds supporters from the Newport community. The evening was every bit in the style of an evening that Miss Duke might have held in the 1930s, while grand and impactful, it was also surprisingly intimate and personal. As a result, Miss Duke’s presence was felt everywhere during of the evening.

When Doris Duke died in 1993, her will directed that Rough Point be preserved and opened to the public through the Newport Restoration Foundation. Rather than being sold for private use, the estate became open to the public and one of the very few Gilded Age Newport “cottages” preserved precisely as its owner left it, with her personal effects in place. Thankfully this space is available for partnership with non-profits like Hope Funds so that the house can live again for the purpose it was made: to entertain grandly and to celebrate the vision of a person who was a woman before her time – independent, supportive of women’s causes, dedicated to furthering medical research, and deeply philanthropic in spirit.