Research

History was made in December when scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility successfully produced a nuclear fusion reaction resulting in a net energy gain. And a Washington-based start-up backed by hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital announced a few months later that it expects to have a fusion power plant built... Read More

New research from Kelly Goldsmith offers insight into the effectiveness of flash sales for online retailers. Read More

The labs of Lauren Jackson and Todd Graham recently published a study in the Journal of Cell Biology describing a significant interaction between an essential protein complex used for protein and lipid transport—the COPI complex—and its regulator protein. Read More

School of Nursing Professor and Associate Dean for Academic and Curriculum Affairs Betsy Kennedy, BSN’89, MSN’93, PhD, ANEF, has been named as an Association of Women’s Health and Obstetrics Neonatal Nurses fellow. Read More

By Amy Wolf It all started late one night in a first-year residence hall. A group of students were brainstorming ideas for an innovative project to collaborate on, and amid all the ambitious suggestions getting tossed around, one engineering major’s idea stood out: What if they built a miniature nuclear fusion reactor? In typical Vanderbilt... Read More

By Amy Wolf It all started late one night in a first-year residence hall. A group of students were brainstorming ideas for an innovative project to collaborate on, and amid all the ambitious suggestions getting tossed around, one engineering major’s idea stood out: What if they built a miniature nuclear fusion reactor? In typical Vanderbilt... Read More

Vanderbilt University will serve as a core partner in a statewide coalition to help shape the future of mobility and usher in a new era of economic prosperity in Tennessee. The effort is being funded by the National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines program. The $1 million Advancing Technology-Enabled Mobility Solutions (ATEMS-TN) Regional Innovation Engines... Read More

A transcontinental research effort led by scientists from Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the University of Michigan has upended some long-standing assumptions about mutations — how often they occur, what causes them and what they do. Read More

The Vanderbilt Fusion Project, an initiative involving 40 undergraduates from 22 majors across three schools, is seeking to build a miniature nuclear fusion reactor—and make history. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers are bolstering the fight against cancer with technology that enhances the effectiveness of T cells that attack tumors. Read More

Vanderbilt research finds that GLP1 receptor agonists — a class of diabetes medications — are associated with fewer major adverse cardiovascular events than another type of diabetes drug (DPP4 inhibitors) in older veterans with no prior heart disease. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers are bolstering the fight against cancer with technology that enhances the effectiveness of T cells that attack tumors. The cutting-edge research was recently published in the high-impact journal Science Immunology. Cancers co-opt both the immune and cardiovascular systems to fuel their own growth, researchers say. They do this in part by forming new... Read More

By Jenna Somers Richard Welsh, associate professor of education and public policy Two recent studies indicate that school-level factors play a considerable role in racial disparities in school discipline. The first study, conducted primarily through a series of interviews, reveals disciplinary tensions between district leaders, school administrators, and… Read More

By Jenna Somers Will Doyle, professor of leadership, policy, and organizations In April, Will Doyle, professor of leadership, policy, and organizations, participated in a panel presentation attended by congressional staff in Washington, D.C., to discuss the possibility of federal-state partnerships to fund higher education at low or no… Read More

A new technique will allow researchers to track subsets of immune cells that patrol and defend the lungs, to better understand the roles of these cells during lung inflammation, infection and injury. Read More

Fluorescent nanoparticles clearly identified colonic adenomas — precursors to colorectal cancer — in mice, and the formulation should translate to clinical use in humans. Read More

The inaugural Mark Dalton Faculty Director of Experiential Learning in Aerospace Engineering is Amrutur "A.V.” Anilkumar. Anilkumar has served as the faculty adviser to Vanderbilt teams that have won numerous national and international aerospace engineering awards over two decades. Read More

Nicole Moehring, a fifth-year graduate student in interdisciplinary materials science, has been selected for an extended residency to continue her doctoral research at the Savannah River National Laboratory. She is one of just 87 awardees selected by the Department of Energy Office of Science Graduate Student Research program this year. Nicole Moehring (Anne Rayner) At... Read More

By Jenna Somers Sarah Brown-Schmidt, professor of psychology and human development In the first four months of Donald Trump’s presidency, leading up to Trump firing FBI director James Comey on May 9, 2017, they met privately nine times. Alarmed by how these meetings broke with traditional boundaries between… Read More

Autumn Kujawa, assistant professor of psychology and human development at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development, has received a five-year, $3.7 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health for a study to identify objective predictors of future suicidal behavior in high-risk adolescents. The study could improve understanding of the pathways to suicidal behavior in young people, help to identify those at greatest risk for suicide attempts, and lead to personalized interventions to prevent suicidal behavior and suicide deaths. Read More