Health And Medicine

Tonia Rex and David Calkins were recently awarded National Eye Institute grants totaling $6.8 million over five years to develop new treatments for optic neuropathies and glaucoma, the leading cause of irreversible blindness. Read More

A recent study led by Xiao-Ou Shu and colleagues found that green tea drinking was associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes in Chinese adults, possibly due to the use of pesticides on tea plants--though the researchers call for further study of the exact mechanism. Read More

Qi Liu, PhD, Ken Lau, PhD, and colleagues have developed a new tool, sc-UniFrac, to quantify diverse cell types in single-cell studies. Read More

People with diabetes may be prone to more skin infections due to an overabundance of a compound that controls inflammation in the body. Read More

Five Vanderbilt University faculty members have been elected new fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society.  Read More

In the first large-scale analysis of cardiovascular complications linked to immune checkpoint inhibitors, Vanderbilt researchers have identified several of the conditions that arise and have determined that they usually appear early in treatment. Read More

It can take up to 16 years for a smoker's body to return to the same state of health as a non-smoker, but significant benefits do begin to appear right away, according to new research by Meredith Duncan. Read More

Pulmonary hypertension may be treated by targeting a bone marrow cell that normally promotes the growth of new blood vessels, according to new research by David Merryman. Read More

Patients hospitalized with a cardiovascular event are more likely to die within one year if they have low health literacy, according to new research by Lindsay Mayberry and Sunil Kripalani. Read More

Susan Wente and Laura Glass have developed an experimental cell culture model system to investigate the link between stress granules and cell resistance to toxic stress, which could lead to new avenues for treating cancer treatment resistance. Read More

Fiona Harrison and colleagues have found evidence that Vitamin C can help protect brains against seizures and cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease. Read More

Rebecca Sappington and colleagues have found that increasing cGMP — part of a signaling pathway that was previously found to regulate intraocular pressure — protects retinal ganglion cells affected by glaucoma. Read More

Lin Zhu and Rob Stafford have found that obesity interferes with cholesterol-improving CTEP inhibitors. Read More

Jeffrey Rathmell and colleagues show that a drug that inhibits glutamine metabolism — currently in clinical trials as an anticancer agent — might also be useful as a treatment for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers led by Buddy Creech are searching for the key to lasting protection against influenza by examining naturally protecting cells found in bone marrow. Read More

The grant will allow Charles Caskey to lead research into using ultrasound as an image-guided therapy for drug delivery. Read More

The grant will allow Kennedy Center researchers to analyze data from VUMC's Synthetic Derivative and BioVU databanks to study biomarkers associated with Down Syndrome. Read More

A new link between a support protein within the brain's white matter and known Alzheimer's biomarkers discovered by Angela Jefferson and colleagues bring researchers a step toward earlier and more precise detection of neuropathology underlying cognitive impairment that may lead to new targeted therapies Read More

Vanderbilt chemists have been awarded $7.2 million over the next five years from the National Cancer Institute to lead an initiative to better understand how a combination chemotherapy for breast cancer targets DNA. Read More

Raymond Harris, Ming-Zhi Zhang and colleagues suggest pathways activated by the epidermal growth factor receptor may be promising targets for treating diabetic kidney disease. Read More