Health And Medicine

As a Marshall Scholar, considered among the most accomplished undergraduates and recent graduates in the U.S., Neikirk will pursue advanced degrees in social determinants of health and biomedical imaging. Read More

Neuroscientist Saman Abbaspoor in the lab of Kari Hoffman won the NIH BRAIN Initiative's 2023 Show Us Your BRAINs! Photo and Video contest. The clip shows how “sharp-wave ripples", different layers of neural activity in the hippocampus, are wirelessly recorded to help study memory. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers have discovered why most colorectal tumors escape detection and destruction by the body’s immune system. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have discovered that beneficial bacteria in the small intestines produce a compound that protects against obesity. Read More

Pasteurization of breast milk affects the concentration of osteopontin, a bioactive protein with roles in intestinal, immunological and brain development — suggesting that osteopontin supplementation should be considered when donor milk is provided to preterm infants. 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

Vanderbilt University School of Nursing has received a $4 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration to increase and diversify the nurse-midwife workforce as a means of improving maternal health and increase access to care. The school will use the Maternity Care Nursing Workforce Expansion grant to educate nurse-midwifery students with a specialized curriculum and community-based clinical experiences focused on providing care in rural and underserved communities. Read More

Monica Joanna Elnekaveh was doing everything she could to learn what was causing her 18-month-old daughter’s developmental issues. Her relentless quest to find answers eventually led her to Vanderbilt investigative neurologist Jing-Qiong (Katty) Kang, MD, PhD. Read More

Boosting its commitment to underrepresented nursing leaders, Vanderbilt University School of Nursing has secured a grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation for its innovative leadership program, Academy for Diverse Emerging Nurse Leaders. The academy is a groundbreaking, five-day immersive fellowship specially designed to train nurses from backgrounds that are underrepresented in nursing leadership... Read More

The group got an overview of Vanderbilt’s programs that support veterans and of the university’s robust research partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense and Fort Campbell. Read More

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center for the first time have shown that activation of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is essential for the development of kidney fibrosis, tissue scarring following injury that can lead to kidney failure. Read More

Kimryn Rathmell, MD, PhD, MMHC, the Hugh Jackson Professor of Medicine and chair of the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, will be appointed Director of the National Cancer Institute. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers are working to better design immune therapies that attack tumors without also attacking healthy normal tissue in patients. Read More

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

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

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

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

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