Reporter Dec 6 2013

On the evening of Nov. 16, in Washington, D.C., William Stead, M.D., associate vice chancellor for Health Affairs and chief strategy officer for Vanderbilt University Medical Center, received a welcome surprise. The setting was the National Press Club and the occasion was the annual leadership dinner of the American Medical Informatics Association, where the field’s top awards are presented. Read More

Vanderbilt University’s contributions to the field of diabetes — past and present — were celebrated recently during the annual Diabetes Day at the Vanderbilt Student Life Center. Read More

The director of the National Cancer Institute, Harold Varmus, M.D., told an overflow crowd at this year’s Orrin Ingram Distinguished Lecture that he is concerned about the climate for discovery research in the United States. Read More

Jennifer Puck, M.D., an expert on human primary immunodeficiencies at the University of California, San Francisco, will deliver the next Flexner Discovery Lecture on Thursday, Dec. 12. Read More

Jason MacGurn, Ph.D., a new assistant professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at Vanderbilt, is studying how cells make decisions about the protein composition of the cell surface. Read More

Vanderbilt University’s Danny Winder, Ph.D., professor of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, is among 15 scientists nationwide to receive NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Grants this fall for their “cutting-edge” research. Read More

Luda Davies, clinical instructor in Surgery in the outpatient surgery clinic at the Nashville campus of the Veterans Affairs Tennessee Valley Healthcare System, has been named Physician Assistant of the Year by the Tennessee Academy of Physician Assistants. Read More

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the University of Alberta in Canada have identified a biomarker for a cellular switch that accurately predicts which prostate cancer patients are likely to have their cancer recur or spread. Read More

David Hall, M.D., has joined the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt as professor of Clinical Pediatrics and the director of the new Program for Children with Medically Complex Needs within the Division of Hospital Medicine. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers and co-authors from four other U.S. institutions from the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network are repurposing genetic data and electronic medical records to perform the first large-scale phenome-wide association study (PheWAS), released today in Nature Biotechnology. Read More

Robert D. Collins, M.D., professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, Emeritus, died Nov. 28. He was 85. Read More

Thanks in part to a computer program named “Rosetta,” Vanderbilt University researchers are closer to understanding how the ubiquitous G protein is activated – a discovery that could lead to the design of more specific and effective drugs. Read More

Eighteen academic and administrative leaders at Vanderbilt University have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) this year. Read More