Healthcare Solutions

People with high fitness levels in midlife have significantly lower annual health care costs after age 65 than people with low fitness in midlife, after adjusting for cardiovascular risk factors, according to a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC). Read More

The National Institutes of Health has awarded a four-year, $6 million grant to investigators at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) and the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) to develop an implantable artificial kidney. Read More

A compound developed by researchers at Vanderbilt University can improve early symptoms and delay progression of Huntington’s disease in a mouse model of the neurodegenerative disorder. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has received a $9.4 million grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to test the effectiveness of a transdermal nicotine patch in improving memory loss in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a precursor to Alzheimer’s disease. Read More

Nearly half of all patients with malignant melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, have a mutation in the BRAF gene found in their tumors. Mutations in the BRAF gene turn on a cancer growth switch known as the MAP kinase pathway. Read More

Quinton Smith doesn’t remember much of what happened one Sunday evening last March. He was disoriented, unable to stand and could not even recognize his girlfriend’s face after she returned home from work. Read More

Data in sports concussion studies will continue to be disputed as long as the injuries are diagnosed by differing standards instead of universal guidelines, a Vanderbilt investigator concludes in a recent review. Read More

A wireless electrocardiogram (ECG) system invented at Vanderbilt University and marketed by a Nashville company, InvisionHeart, has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. Read More

The Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt is receiving significant philanthropic support through a $3 million gift from the Country Music Association (CMA), Vanderbilt University Medical Center leaders, event host Kix Brooks and Hillary Scott of Lady Antebellum announced this week. Read More

Despite benefiting from dramatic improvements in movement after deep brain stimulation surgery, patients with Parkinson’s disease can be inadequately served when physicians and researchers focus only on its motor manifestations, says a Vanderbilt neurosurgeon. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center is one of only a few academic medical centers in the country with a dedicated hospital-wide tobacco treatment service. Read More

As part of its ongoing commitment to provide excellent care for heart failure patients in Tennessee and the Southeastern U.S., Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute recently became the first medical center in the state to implant the HeartMate 3, a novel mechanical circulatory support device. Vanderbilt… Read More

A university working group has established the model for a new office that will provide pre-award support for university faculty grant and contract proposals to external funding agencies following the VU-VUMC reorganization. A search for the new office's director also has been launched. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers could be one step closer to finding a way to fight the deadly Ebola virus – thanks to two Ebola victims from Nigeria, who faced death and survived. Vanderbilt researchers developed a unique method of isolating potent Ebola-fighting antibodies from survivors’ blood and they believe these newest… Read More

Vanderbilt University School of Nursing (VUSN) has been awarded a four-year $660,633 grant from the National Institute of Health’s National Institute on Aging to study how psychophysical responses to acute experimental thermal pain differ between older adults with and without Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Read More

Vanderbilt University School of Medicine is accepting applicants into a novel program aimed at students seeking to transform health and health care through medical innovation. Read More

Vanderbilt University has been awarded a major federal grant — $16 million over four years — to coordinate AIDS education and training efforts in Tennessee and seven other southeastern states. Read More

Jeff Balser, M.D., Ph.D., started his annual State of the Medical Center Address last Thursday by affirming that many who work at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) feel “called to do so,” often compelled by life-shaping experiences. Read More

More than half of hospitalizations due to influenza pneumonia could be prevented by influenza vaccination, according to a study led by investigators at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Read More

La Jolla Pharmaceutical Co. and Vanderbilt University have signed a research and license agreement covering Vanderbilt’s research program and intellectual property rights related to compounds that block bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) type-I receptors. The compounds have therapeutic potential in a broad range of diseases, including rare genetic disorders. Read More