Department Of Cell And Developmental Biology

Join the School of Medicine Basic Sciences’ monthly Lab-to-Table series for a conversation with former Tour de France and Olympic athletes about science and cycling. The discussion will touch on the athletes’ personal experiences with training, coaching and medicine in cycling and how biomedical science has shaped their efforts. The virtual event will be Tuesday, Aug. 17, at 11 a.m. CT. Read More

Pioneering research from Vanderbilt scientists discovers the mechanism by which epithelial cells first find and react to wounds. Est. reading time: 3 mins. Read More

David Miller and Seth Taylor push genetic research forward by leading the completion of a gene expression atlas for the entire nervous system of the nematode C. elegans Est. reading time: 1.5 mins. Read More

A compound that increases lifespan in yeast is offering clues to pharmacological approaches that might slow the aging process and improve health. Read More

After graduating with a Ph.D. in cell and developmental biology from the Vanderbilt School of Medicine Basic Sciences, Alissa Guarnaccia will begin a rare postdoctoral research position with health care biotechnology giant Genentech. Read More

Sabine Fuhrmann and colleagues have discovered a novel underlying cause of coloboma — a birth defect that causes missing tissue in the eye and accounts for up to 10% of childhood blindness. Read More

Researchers will combine expertise in developmental cell biology and tissue engineering/microfluidics to develop highly complex organoids, with the goal of understanding currently incurable neurological disorders.  Read More

For the second time, cancer researchers at Vanderbilt have discovered a protein that—when genetically manipulated to impede it from interacting with a gene responsible for cancer genesis—effectively melts tumors in days. Read More

The Department of Cell and Developmental Biology hosts a weekly seminar series most Mondays at 12:15 p.m. CT via Zoom. The weekly seminars are on cutting-edge topics in cell or developmental biology as well as stem cell and epithelial biology. Visiting speakers are invited from a variety of institutions throughout the U.S. Read More

William Tansey and colleagues identified proteins that interact with the cancer drug target WDR5 and are important for cancer cell growth. Read More

Bryan Millis, research assistant professor of cell and developmental biology and biomedical engineering, has been awarded a grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Imaging Scientists program. The proceeds will go toward building an immersive virtual education platform to expand instruction and accessibility of high-end microscopy techniques within and beyond the Vanderbilt research community. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have identified a new molecular partner — and potential therapeutic target — in a signaling axis that drives lung cancer. Read More

A new method that keeps microbes and gut cells together will be useful for studies of complex host-microbe interactions and for analysis of clinical specimens. Read More

It might be possible to use vesicles carrying the receptor for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, to bind the virus and prevent infection. Read More

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have identified a key factor that coordinates the body’s repair response to severe injury in the stomach caused, most commonly, by infection by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori. Read More

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have generated the first comprehensive molecular “atlas” of genes expressed by the neuronal cells within the intestine that coordinate the functions of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Read More

Mukhtar Ahmed, Christian de Caestecker and Ian Macara, in collaboration with geneticists from Australia and Italy discover novel mutations in the Exocyst, providing new understanding of a critical cellular protein complex. Read More

Cell biologists, physicists and computer scientists use computational modeling to pinpoint the components that shape cell behavior. Read More

Single-cell and multisystem analysis leads cell biologists at Vanderbilt to new understanding of rare cells, with potential inflammation-reducing therapeutics for Crohn’s disease and IBD patients. Read More

Vanderbilt scientists have discovered a new target for normalizing tumor blood vessels to improve cancer immunotherapies. Read More