Research

Lars Plate, assistant professor of chemistry and biological sciences, has received a $2.76 million collaborative grant to investigate medical therapy for people with cystic fibrosis. The interdisciplinary project brings together teams with varied expertise in computational structural biology, proteomics, biophysics, and physiology in hopes of improving the quality of life for those afflicted with the genetic disease. Read More

Blair School of Music is well represented in the nominations for the 66th GRAMMY Awards, with a total of five selections announced on November 10. Read More

Twelve current investigators at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Vanderbilt University are on this year’s list of scientists whose papers have been cited the most frequently by other researchers. Read More

Vanderbilt research discovers that iron storage “spheres” inside the bacterium C. diff — the leading cause of hospital-acquired infections — are important for infection in an animal model and could offer new targets for antibacterial drugs. Read More

by Brenda Ellis As the nation’s skies become more crowded with commercial air traffic and U.S. air traffic control systems struggle with staffing and aging infrastructure, the risk of narrowly avoided collisions in the air and on the tarmac has increased significantly in the last five years. The nation’s top accident investigator said that a... Read More

Launched this fall, the Open Dialogue Visiting Fellows program is a series to equip students for engaged and informed citizenship in a fractured world. The 12 student ambassadors will work closely with faculty and campus visitors to design programs for their peers, host visiting speakers and serve as representatives of the program to the Vanderbilt community. Read More

Abhishek Dubey, associate professor of computer science and electrical and computer engineering, is leading a one-day symposium on Nov. 13 at Cornell Tech highlighting innovative research for sustainable cities. Called Urban Tech Academy day, the event sponsored by the National Science Foundation and Cornell Tech will focus on “clean electrified multimodal transportation systems.” Over two... Read More

By Jenna Somers Sophia Vinci-Booher A three-year, $1.6 million grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development will support Sophia Vinci-Booher, assistant professor of psychology and human development at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development, and her team in evaluating brain development… Read More

New research shows nearly everyone can lower their blood pressure, even people currently on blood pressure- reducing drugs, by lowering their sodium intake. Read More

Vanderbilt mechanical engineering professors Deyu Li and Josh Caldwell are part of a team of researchers who have discovered a new heat dissipation channel using phonon polaritons that could have extensive implications for novel cooling technologies in devices like smart phones and other modern electronics. The research was recently published in Nature Communications under the... Read More

Several Vanderbilt faculty members are among an international roster of scholars presenting research at the Nature conference, “Bioengineering for Global Health,” at Vanderbilt University Nov. 13–15. Faculty members from the Department of Biomedical Engineering and editors from Nature Communications, Nature Biomedical Engineering and Nature Reviews Bioengineering led the organization of the conference. Read More

Lisa Monteggia, Barlow Family Director of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute, joined John Hoomes of the Nashville Opera for a discussion on the art and science behind the Nashville Opera’s The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. The discussion was part of TPAC’s InsideOut series, which celebrated 20 years of partnership with Vanderbilt this year. Read More

The Ingram Scholars Program, founded in 1993 by then-Board of Trust Chairman E. Bronson Ingram, has led to transformative student experiences for many at Vanderbilt who, in turn, have given service to Nashville and communities around the globe. Read More

The Nichols Humanitarian Fund, which provides funding in support of Vanderbilt students who plan to pursue humanitarian immersive experiences, was established in 2006 by the E.C. and Lucile Hamby Nichols Trust, and by Edward C. Nichols Jr., JD’70, and his wife, Janice Nichols. The fund encourages Vanderbilt students to become better citizens of the world and to broaden their thinking by volunteering for humanitarian efforts. Read More

A comprehensive study that integrates multiple analytic approaches has linked a regulatory gene network and functional defects in insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells to Type 2 diabetes. Read More

A modular, open-access curriculum created at Vanderbilt that’s designed to expand the ability of high school teachers to use technology in learning offers an engaging introduction to advanced topics that are currently accessible only to computer science majors in college. Read More

Clinicians need to have a better understanding of the potential impact of patients’ anxiety sensitivity, or “fear of fear,” according to an article published in American Journal of Critical Care. When a patient has anxiety sensitivity, they misinterpret nonthreatening symptoms as threatening, assessing the potential meaning across physical, social or cognitive domains. These “what if” thoughts may trigger a spiral effect, stimulating the nervous system and resulting in stronger sensations and further catastrophic misinterpretations. Read More

Bridget Rogers has been elected President of the American Vacuum Society. AVS is comprised of approximately 4,500 members and supports networking and camaraderie among academic, industrial, government, and consulting professionals involved in emerging interdisciplinary research related to materials, interfaces, and processing. Read More

Reporting Nov. 6 in Cell Reports Medicine, Ivelin Georgiev, PhD, and colleagues demonstrated that antibodies isolated from children’s blood samples displayed high levels of neutralization and potency against variants of the COVID-19 virus, SARS-CoV-2, even when the children had not previously been exposed to or vaccinated against those variants. Read More