Biological Sciences

Ants have four to five times more odor receptors than most other insects, a team of researchers have discovered. Read More

Vanderbilt is on track this year to become the number one producer of minority Ph.D. recipients in physics, astronomy and materials science, an area where minorities are grossly underrepresented. Watch the emotional journey of the latest doctoral graduates from the Fisk-Vanderbilt-Master’s-to-Ph.D. Bridge Program. [vucastblurb]… Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have discovered a new insect repellent compound that may be thousands of times stronger than DEET, the active ingredient currently in common mosquito repellents. This new compound is the first of its kind in the world.  … Read More

Julian Hillyer is the 2012 recipient of one of the Entomological Society of America’s annual recognition award. Read More

Learn about an unusual research lab on Vanderbilt’s campus which employs almost entirely undergraduate students. Read more: Biology Lab Utilizes Undergraduate Research to Study Protein Diseases   Produced by Vanderbilt student Harrison Dreves. Read More

Light and the hormone melatonin may play important roles in the developing brain. Read More

A team of scientists has taken a major step toward developing robot biologists. They have shown that their system, the Automated Biology Explorer, can solve a complicated biology problem from scratch. Read More

Vanderbilt graduate student Cassidy Cobbs has investigated recent news reports linking cell phone emissions with bee mortality and found that there is no scientific basis for the claims. Read More

Photo of a true blue-eyed cicada (Matt Weiss, Cicada Mania) Have you heard the latest buzz going round that scientists at Vanderbilt are paying as much as $3,000 for specimens of the rare blue-eyed cicada? If you have, I hope you haven’t spent a lot of time… Read More

Students at BSC111c poster session discussing project that determined the phylogenetic relationship of a number of common insects (Susan Urmy / Vanderbilt) In an educational environment increasingly characterized by canned and virtual science experiments that always come out right, Vanderbilt’s alternative introductory biology laboratory (BSC 111c) stands… Read More

Vanderbilt researchers are exploring what role, if any, bacteria play in environmental diversity, with the aim of answering one of biology's most fundamental questions. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers are using a variety of approaches to hasten the beginning of the end of malaria. Read More

Gary Revell shows some of the worms he has collected using worm grunting (Ken Catania) “What is worm grunting?” That is one of the questions that moderator Richard Sher asked panelists last weekend in a rerun of a pre-recorded edition of “Says You!” – the popular… Read More

A new mouse model offers the ability to better test how selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) work and could lead to the development of new classes of anti-depressants. Read More

A record crowd of students and presenters turned out for the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development's 2011 Science Day Feb. 15. Read More

Since the days of Darwin, the “tree of life” has been the preeminent metaphor for the process of evolution, reflecting the gradual branching and changing of individual species. The discovery that a large cluster of genes appears to have jumped directly from one species of fungus to another, however,… Read More

School for Science and Math students Katie Roland, left, who attends Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet School, and Isaiah Bolden, who attends Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School, with the School for Science and Math’s director, Angela Eeds, Ph.D. (Mary Donaldson / Vanderbilt University) Report after report, it… Read More

Left to right: Karen Gregory, Elizabeth Hammock, Peilin Jia, John Panos Eight Vanderbilt University scientists have won 2010 Young Investigator Awards from NARSAD, the world’s leading mental health research charity. Each scientist will receive up to $60,000 over two years for innovative brain and behavioral studies of serious psychiatric disorders. Read More

Personalized medicine refers to the relationship between genetic differences among individuals and corresponding differences in their chemical state and how they respond to various nutrients, drugs, and compounds in their environment. (Photo courtesy of Scripps Research Institute) Leftover blood samples from Vanderbilt’s clinics are retrieved daily from the Pathology lab. Read More

Graduate student Chris Ciarleglio who performed the study in the McMahon Lab that found the circadian clock in mammals is imprinted by the day/night cycle when an individual is born. The finding may help explain why people born in the winter at high latitudes are at greater risk for seasonal… Read More