Reporter March 8 2013

I write to you this month in the wake of a series of immediate federal expense reductions, known as the “sequester.” True, the country is grappling with a federal debt load that is unsustainable, and reversal of this trend is essential to our country’s future. Read More

A new research core has been established to help Vanderbilt University Medical Center investigators optimize their nutrition- and diet-related study designs, methods, measures, interventions and analysis. Read More

John Penn, Ph.D., vice chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at Vanderbilt, is seeking to change the way retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), the leading cause of childhood blindness worldwide, is treated. Read More

Life just got a little easier for Vanderbilt patients with structural heart disease. Read More

About 300 people attended Brain Blast, a half-day of fun and education on Saturday at Vanderbilt Health One Hundred Oaks. Read More

The American Association of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus (AAPOS) recently revised the guidelines for reporting the results from studies of preschool vision screening instruments. Read More

A social work conference, “Current Issues in Tennessee: Human Trafficking and Dual Diagosis,” will be held Tuesday, March 12, in the Scarritt Bennett Center’s Raintree Room. Read More

Jonathan Seidman, Ph.D., who has made pivotal contributions to understanding the genetic basis of cardiomyopathy and other heart diseases, will deliver the next Flexner Discovery Lecture on Thursday, March 14. Read More

Zachary Warren, Ph.D., has been named to receive the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities' (AAIDD) 2013 Early Career Award. Read More

On Tuesday, Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute employees gathered to bid farewell to John Byrne, M.D., William S. Stoney Jr. Professor of Cardiac Surgery and chair of the department. Read More

As choices mount for patient testing and treatment, diagnostic management has arisen at Vanderbilt University Medical Center to address two closely related questions that clinicians must ask themselves more and more often: have I ordered the right tests for this patient; and, taken together, what do these test results imply for the best treatment of this patient? Read More

An international group of investigators has identified seven new genetic regions associated with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a common cause of blindness in older individuals. Read More

New signs directing Vanderbilt University Medical Center visitors to “tornado safe” areas during a tornado have been placed at Vanderbilt University Hospital, The Vanderbilt Clinic, the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt and Vanderbilt Health One Hundred Oaks. Read More

An important predictor of the severity of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants may be what their mothers ate during pregnancy. Read More