Health And Medicine

Vanderbilt researchers have discovered a novel model of evolution for factors that control gene expression. Read More

Hypoxia (lack of enough oxygen) is bad for the body as a whole, but in the neighborhood where infection-fighting antibodies arise, may be important for keeping proper order. Read More

Terunaga Nakagawa, with colleagues from Japan and Oxford University in England, has discovered the bridgelike molecular structure of a mysterious glutamate receptor. Read More

Tuberculosis (TB) remains an important public health problem, particularly among people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Read More

The Robert J. Kleberg Jr. and Helen C. Kleberg Foundation has awarded a $3 million grant to Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) investigators in support of VICC’s drug discovery program. The gift awarded over the next three years from the private, San Antonio, Texas-based foundation will enable VICC researchers to pursue the development of new compounds to block the activity of cancer-causing genes and proteins that had previously been considered “undruggable.” Read More

Antidepressant use during pregnancy is common. Fetal exposure to the class of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) is associated with the life-threatening condition PPHN (persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn), but a causal link has not been established. Read More

During development, neural circuits are remodeled – some synapses are eliminated and others are strengthened – to produce a mature, functional nervous system. Read More

The 2C-subtype of the serotonin receptor (5HT2C), which binds the neurotransmitter serotonin, plays an important role in regulating food intake and metabolism. Read More

Vanderbilt University researcher Danny Winder, Ph.D., has received a MERIT Award from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Addiction (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health, for his contributions to understanding how alcohol affects the brain. Read More

Neuropsychologist Gary Solomon, Ph.D., recently weighed in on one of the hottest debates in sports medicine, asserting that research doesn’t support the popular theory that concussions put athletes at higher risk for psychiatric illness. Read More

Women may be at higher risk than men when it comes to overuse of opioid-containing painkillers, speakers warned at a research symposium at Vanderbilt University Medical Center earlier this month. Read More

Cells from the bone marrow participate in the development of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), and they can also protect against it, according to new findings from a team of Vanderbilt University Medical Center investigators. Read More

Investigators in the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine recently received a $4.5 million Asthma and Allergic Diseases Cooperative Research Center (AADCRC) grant from the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Read More

Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) has awarded two grants to faculty in the Department of Ophthalmology. Read More

A new method developed at Vanderbilt may help “inventory” all tumor-promoting genes. Read More

Drugs that are being used clinically to treat obesity and diabetes may also have a role in treating drug abuse. Read More

Parenting behaviors may be an important target for improving outcomes in adolescents with diabetes. Read More

During the past two weeks, researchers at Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) have brought in a number of new research grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that together achieve $137 million in new funding. The funding is a trans-institutional accomplishment of the Schools of Engineering and Medicine and the College of Arts and Science. Read More

New studies of a membrane transporter could explain antibiotic resistance – and lead to novel ways to combat it. Read More

People with Alzheimer’s disease don’t perceive pain as readily as healthy older adults, and this may lead to delays and underreporting of pain. This alteration in pain detection may be one reason that people with Alzheimer’s disease and pain tend to be undermedicated and suffer unnecessarily, a trans-institutional group of Vanderbilt researchers reported recently in BMC Medicine. Read More