External Story

New findings by Jörn-Hendrik Weitkamp and colleagues provide the first account of bacterial signatures in mammalian fetal intestinal tissue. The results suggest that bacterial DNA moves from the mother’s microbiome into the fetal intestine, which may be a critical stimulus for normal mucosal immune development. Read More

Chronic inflammation is a predisposing condition for colorectal cancer, the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Anna Means, Ph.D., and colleagues have now linked inflammation-driven carcinogenesis in the colon to loss of an important signaling protein called SMAD4. Read More

Vanderbilt engineers have successfully developed and validated the feasibility of blockchain-based technologies for secure, confidential sharing of patient medical records in a case study that demonstrates how blockchain could solve a huge healthcare challenge. Read More

Right under your nose but unseen by the human eye is the microbiome—the totality of microbes in an environment. The Vanderbilt Microbiome Initiative, funded by a TIPs grant, is coordinating basic, translational and clinical scholarship to help unlock the mysteries of these bacteria, viruses and more. Learn about the initiative and its new website in this VU BreakThru blog post. Read more about TIPs grants and other internal faculty funding programs—including University Courses, Research Scholar Grants and Discovery Grants—at the VU BreakThru blog. Read More

Nabil Simaan’s Advanced Robotics and Mechanism Applications Laboratory at Vanderbilt leads the way in advancing several robotics technologies for medical use, including miniature robots for single small-incision, cochlear implant and minimally invasive throat surgeries. Read More

Steve Turner (BA‘69) was a student of cities long before Nashville became a hip place to visit as well as live. Read More

President Donald Trump has nominated Jon Parrish Peede, BS’91, to serve as the 11th chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Read More

Organizational reliability expert Rangaraj Ramanujam co-edited a new book consolidating 30 years of top research into what makes high-stakes organizations work. Read More

Combining a natural dye from blackberries with photosynthetic proteins extracted from spinach leaves increases the voltage of biohybrid solar cells by a factor of 20. Read More

Engineering professors Sharon Weiss and  Anita Mahadevan-Jansen have been named fellows of The Optical Society (OSA), a leading international association for optics and photonics. In addition, Weiss has been named a fellow of SPIE, the international society advancing an interdisciplinary approach to the science and application of light. Read More

In VU BreakThru, Peabody alumni Kristin Baese and Eve Rifkin discuss school reform in Sterling Ranch – a planned community outside of Denver that won a 2015 Trans-Institutional Programs (TIPs) award and continues to flourish. Read More

Duvall conducts research on advanced drug delivery systems designed for regenerative medicine applications, such as tissue engineering, wound healing, vascular bypass grafts and protection of tissue from degenerative diseases. Read More

From Vanderbilt Magazine: James Crowe, director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center, hopes to create a universal flu vaccine--permanently eliminating the problem of ineffective or under-effective annual flu shots. Read More

Vanderbilt is a recognized leader in the innovation of civil infrastructure, and the Vanderbilt Initiative for Intelligent Resilient Infrastructure Systems builds on that foundation by defining strategies to protect the nation from floods. Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Caglar Oskay explains the group’s work in this VU BreakThru blog post. Read More

Statement by Vanderbilt University Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos on The Tax Cut and Jobs Act, the House tax reform package: “We fully support efforts to provide relief to the middle class through simplifying our complicated tax code and stimulating our economy, but we do not think… Read More