Year: 2013

What if there was a program that connected surgeons, physicians, nursing staff and other medical care providers with a team of the nation’s top engineers? What if that program enabled the transfer of innovative ideas to working prototypes – financially and developmentally? Fortunately for the Vanderbilt community, there is. Established… Read More

The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center (Vanderbilt University) For children with severe communication impairments who are unable to communicate using natural speech, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) can open up other forms of expression and ways to connect with family members, teachers and friends. The fifth annual Augmentative and Alternative Communications… Read More

iStock Peer solicitation – a child inviting another to play – can improve reciprocal social interaction among children with autism, according to a Vanderbilt University study released today in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Researchers studied playground interactions between children with autism and typically… Read More

Michael Petracek, M.D., has been named chair of Vanderbilt’s Department of Cardiac Surgery. Read More

Jeffrey Sosman, M.D., professor of Medicine and leader of the Vanderbilt Melanoma Program, will head one of two teams of researchers at prominent national institutions investigating acral melanoma, a skin cancer that typically forms on the hands, soles of the feet or under the fingernails. Read More

Faculty members Josh Denny, M.D., M.S., associate professor of Biomedical Informatics and Medicine, and Paul Harris, Ph.D., associate professor of Biomedical Informatics and research associate professor of Biomedical Engineering, are among six fellows elected this year to the American College of Medical Informatics. Read More

Christoph Lehmann, M.D., and a handful of fellow experts in clinical informatics have secured official recognition for their subspecialty from the American Board of Medical Specialties. Read More

The Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence (TNCPE) is awarding Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center’s Department of Otolaryngology with its Commitment Award in the annual Excellence in Tennessee recognition program. Read More

Just before 3 p.m. on April 15, two bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Of the estimated 27,000 runners and 500,000 spectators present, three people were killed and 281 injured. Preparation, execution and teamwork — along with a large dose of luck — kept casualties to a minimum, according to Mitchel Harris, M.D., chief of the Orthopaedic Trauma Service at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Read More

Donald Brady, M.D., senior associate dean for Graduate Medical Education and Continuing Professional Development, will serve a one-year term as chair of the board of directors of the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare (AACH) for 2014. Brady spent this year serving as president and will transition into a one-year role as chair. Read More

The university building that reduces its energy consumption by the highest percentage—compared to this time last year—will win a pizza party of up to 20 pies. Read More

(photo by Rex Perry) Dancers from the Nashville Ballet recently performed a piece from “The Nutcracker” for patients and families at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Plant Services and Sustainability and Environmental Management Office (SEMO) are hosting “Go Green for the Holidays,” an energy conservation contest open to research labs during the final two weeks of December. Read More

They are touchstones on the Nashville calendar — Iroquois Steeplechase and the Music City Tennis Invitational usher in spring. The Eve of Janus is a celebration of summer. Christmas Village kicks off the holiday season. Read More

Vanderbilt University researchers and their Belgian colleagues have discovered the mechanism behind a multidrug transporter. Their findings, posted this week by Nature Chemical Biology, could lead to new treatments for multidrug resistant bacterial infections. Read More

Developmental biologist Chin Chiang, Ph.D., and his colleagues have discovered that Purkinje neurons in the cerebellum act as central regulators of neuronal development. Read More

Vanderbilt University has received a $3 million grant from the GE Foundation’s Developing Health Globally program to fund international medical education and research in Kenya and other low-resource regions of the world. Read More

AWARDS & HONORS Sun-Joo Cho Sun-Joo Cho, assistant professor of psychology and human development, was named a 2013 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow. The $55,000 award… Read More

The Department of Special Education announced the appointment of six new faculty members. They are (front row, left) Blair Lloyd and Victoria Knight, (back row, left): Chris Lemons, Joe Lambert and Erin Barton. Not pictured is Jennifer Ledford. (Daniel Dubois/Vanderbilt)… Read More

Pictured, from left, are: Chair of the Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations Ellen Goldring, Moody and Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos. (Daniel Dubois/Vanderbilt) The Commodore Award, Vanderbilt’s highest staff honor, was presented during the Service Awards Celebration Sept. 10 in Langford Auditorium to Rosemary Moody, an educational… Read More