Health And Medicine

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have discovered a new genetic disease that causes a severe form of neurogenic orthostatic hypotension, a rapid drop in blood pressure upon standing that can cause fainting. Read More

Patients who, perhaps unbeknownst to their health care providers, are in need of genetic testing for rare undiagnosed diseases can be identified en masse based on routine information in electronic health records (EHRs), a research team reported June 3. Read More

Using NASA data on solar insolation, Sandra Rosenthal has postulated that seasonal rate of change in daylight has the greatest effect on illnesses with seasonal patterns, not average levels of sunlight. (Est. reading time: 3 mins.) Read More

Aviv Regev, PhD, an internationally known computational biologist and executive vice president of Genentech Research and Early Development (gRED), is the recipient of the 2021 Vanderbilt Prize in Biomedical Science, officials at Vanderbilt University Medical Center announced this week. Read More

Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center researchers will present data on clinical trials involving targeted therapies, immunotherapies and drug combination synergies at the 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, June 4-8. The meeting is a virtual event this year. Read More

Heat therapy could offer a novel nonpharmacologic approach for treating the overnight hypertension that affects patients with autonomic failure. Read More

A white blood cell, the TREM2/APOE/C1Q-positive macrophage, has been identified as a potential biomarker to predict recurrence of the most common type of kidney cancer and as a possible target for drug development. Read More

By studying extracellular vesicles from the brain, researchers at Vanderbilt and Argentina’s Universidad Nacional de Córdoba are the first to show how the incorporation of extracellular proteins into a neuron can modify neurotransmission Read More

Vanderbilt neonatology team pinpoints signaling pathways involved in the progressive lung fibrosis that occurs in rare genetic diseases. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers dissected the complex microenvironment of the pancreatic islet to discover the signals that drive beta cell regeneration — as a possible treatment for diabetes. Read More

James Muchira, a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Nursing, has been named an American Academy of Nursing Jonas Policy Scholar. This program supports early-career scholars seeking to build their knowledge and aptitude in health policy. Read More

Celebrated neuroscientist and author of Still Alice to join Vanderbilt Brain Institute for discussion on How the Brain Remembers. Read More

People with a high polygenic risk score for colorectal cancer could benefit more at preventing the disease by leading healthy lifestyles than those at lower genetic risk, according to a study by Vanderbilt researchers published in the April issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Read More

Maternal health researcher James Muchira confirms poor maternal heart health results in adverse childbirth outcomes in the United States; hypertension is the strongest predictor of this association, with disparities observed along racial lines. Est. reading time: 2 mins. Read More

Research Snapshot: Neuroimaging research is the first to show an area of the brain’s role in early abstinence from alcohol, revealing key sex differences. Est. reading time 2.5 mins. Read More

Cancer specialists at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in partnership with biochemists and structural biologists across the Vanderbilt University campus, are taking “personalized” cancer therapy to a new level. Read More

Tumors consume glucose at high rates, but a team of Vanderbilt researchers has discovered that cancer cells themselves are not the culprit, upending models of cancer metabolism that have been developed and refined over the last 100 years. Read More

The Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (VICTR) has been awarded a major federal grant to lead a national trial of treatments targeting the Renin Angiotensin Aldosterone System (RAAS) in patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Read More

A protein implicated in neurodegenerative diseases including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis prevents the activation of an innate immune response that leads to cell death, Vanderbilt researchers have discovered. Read More

Graduate student Catherine Shelton has been selected as one of two students nationally to receive the ninth annual Gut Microbiome, Yogurt and Probiotics Fellowship grant from Danone North America, the fresh dairy and plant-based products company. Shelton will use her grant to fund her research on identifying early-life microbiota components that may prevent obesity in children. Read More