Health And Medicine

Behavioral and systems neuropharmacologist Jerri Rook is recognized by the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation with the Goodes Prize to continue her work in Alzheimer’s disease research. Read More

Jacek Hawiger’s anti-inflammatory peptide therapy, licensed by Amytrx and now in clinical trials, has the potential to safely and effectively treat a multitude of inflammatory and metabolic diseases. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers—including Charles Sanders, associate dean for research and professor of biochemistry, and graduate student Justin Marinko—have illuminated the cause of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, putting them on the road to developing therapeutic approaches for the disease that affects one in 2,500 people. Read More

Vanderbilt University School of Nursing will use a $3.2 million federal grant for a scholarship program for economically disadvantaged students from underrepresented racial and ethnic minority backgrounds. The program aims to increase diversity in primary health care providers, particularly in medically underserved areas. Read More

Drug-tolerant persister cells–those that survive cancer treatment–found to rely on similar survival mechanisms across cancers, in a groundbreaking study led by Vanderbilt researchers. Read More

Craig Lindsley, the William K. Warren, Jr. Chair and University Professor of Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Chemistry, will become director of Vanderbilt University’s Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery, effective Dec. 1, 2020. Read More

Three Vanderbilt faculty members—Nancy Carrasco, Velma McBride Murry and Consuelo Wilkins—have been elected this year to the National Academy of Medicine, the organization announced on Monday. Read More

Biologists reveal that tissue perturbations by chemotherapy agents promote stem cell expansion and that fibroblast cells exhibit unexpected, immune-like behavior. Read More

Two prototype devices could refine thrombectomy through sensory augmentation. Read More

All-remote collaboration results in free animal susceptibility tool to help prioritize research and closer examination of at-risk species. Read More

Nominations for the 2021 Vanderbilt Prize in Biomedical Science are now being accepted. The nomination deadline is Dec. 11. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have been awarded $500,000 by Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, to study how COVID-19 alters gene expression in some people in ways that may be linked to to their risk of severe illness and death. Read More

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have identified antibodies that, in animals, block infection by alphaviruses, which can cause chronic and debilitating joint pain and arthritis and are an increasing global health concern. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has been awarded a one-year, $34-million grant by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, to conduct a nationwide study of “convalescent plasma” as a treatment for COVID-19. Read More

A small-molecule “scavenger” that reduces inflammation and formation of atherosclerotic plaque in blood vessels in mice potentially could lead to a new approach for treating atherosclerosis in humans, according to researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Read More

Mukhtar Ahmed, Christian de Caestecker and Ian Macara, in collaboration with geneticists from Australia and Italy discover novel mutations in the Exocyst, providing new understanding of a critical cellular protein complex. Read More

A new $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health is enabling Vanderbilt University chemist Renã A.S. Robinson to expand her research on racial disparities in Alzheimer’s and other diseases. Read More

Derek Griffith, professor of medicine, health and society and founding director of the Center for Research on Men’s Health, takes an intersectional approach to researching the impacts of COVID-19, advocating for a more nuanced understanding of identity’s role in determining risk to enhance policy reforms toward greater health equity. Read More

Cell biologists, physicists and computer scientists use computational modeling to pinpoint the components that shape cell behavior. Read More

Single-cell and multisystem analysis leads cell biologists at Vanderbilt to new understanding of rare cells, with potential inflammation-reducing therapeutics for Crohn’s disease and IBD patients. Read More