Health And Medicine

Terrah Foster Akard is helping children facing serious and life-threatening illness create a digital record of their lives, and measuring the impact the practice has on their emotional wellbeing. Read More

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) have taken another step toward developing a vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the major cause of life-threatening pneumonia in infants worldwide. Read More

Social risk factors including income, education and ethnic background influence health outcomes and should be taken into account in Medicare payment models, according to a New England Journal of Medicine “Perspective” titled “Social Risk Factors and Equity in Medicare Payment.” Read More

The signaling molecule IL-15 promotes septic shock, a life-threatening condition involving organ injury caused by infection. Read More

Some memory deficits observed in Alzheimer’s disease may be due to co-morbid illnesses – not the disease itself – and may be reversed by lifestyle changes or pharmacologic interventions. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have identified a unique example of communication between bacterial signaling systems, which may have relevance for antibiotic resistance. Read More

An enzyme in macrophage immune cells may be a good target for treating chronic infections, Vanderbilt researchers have discovered. Read More

Researchers at Vanderbilt have identified what may be a genetic “smoking gun” for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) — a mutation in the gene for the critical neuronal protein CaMKII. Read More

As a fellow in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Bradley Richmond, M.D., saw a lot of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), an inflammatory lung disease caused most often by long-term exposure to cigarette smoke. Read More

Removing tonsils modestly reduced throat infections in the short term in children with moderate obstructive sleep-disordered breathing or recurrent throat infections, according to a systematic review conducted by the Vanderbilt Evidence-based Practice Center for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Read More

High dose flu vaccine boosts the immune response in older adults by increasing activation of certain immune cells. Read More

“Epigenetic signatures” in DNA may present an opportunity for prevention of or early intervention in childhood obesity. Read More

The compound MPLA is an attractive vaccine component, designed to elicit a robust immune response. Read More

Although cancers arising from different areas of the large intestine are heterogeneous, they appear to use similar important tumorigenic pathways. Read More

Integrins are membrane proteins made up of combinations of different “alpha” and “beta” subunits that enable cells throughout the body to interact with their surroundings. Read More

Metastatic pancreatic cancer — cancer that has spread from the pancreas to other tissues and is responsible for most patient deaths — changes its metabolism and is “reprogrammed” for optimal malignancy, according to new findings reported Jan. 16 in Nature Genetics. Read More

Since it was created in 1949, the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) has been one of the most widely used requirements for admission to U.S. graduate schools. As a predictor of performance and success in graduate school, however, the exam is not without its critics. Read More

The duration of exposure to daylight, or the “photoperiod,” may affect development of seasonal affective disorder by programming serotonin neurons in the brain, according to Vanderbilt University researchers. Read More

Cognitive and attention deficits observed in children following surgery before age 5 to repair congenital heart defects likely will persist into their teens and young adulthood. Read More

Researchers in the Schools of Medicine and Engineering at Vanderbilt University have discovered a proteomic “signature” from the airways of heavy smokers that could lead to better risk assessment and perhaps new ways to stop lung cancer before it starts. Read More