Featured Research

Results of a landmark, seven-year National Institutes of Health-funded trial, Management of Myelomeningocele Study (MOMS), demonstrate clear benefit for babies who undergo fetal surgery to treat spina bifida, the most common birth defect in the central nervous system. Read More

(iStock photo) Vanderbilt University Medical Center is participating in a multi-site, national study to identify the role nurses play in improving outcomes among heart failure patients. Nancy Wells (Vanderbilt) “Heart failure is being recognized as a huge issue in elderly and middle-aged people, and it has a profound effect on… Read More

Try asking any Monday morning quarterback about blown fourth-down play calls in the NFL and you are guaranteed passionate opinions. In most fourth-down plays, an NFL team will punt or try for a field goal. But, occasionally, teams decide to do something that is viewed as risky – attempt a… Read More

Every few months, chemist Brian Bachmann sheds his white lab coat, collects his flashlight, helmet, surgical gloves and knotted rope, puts on old clothes and hiking boots and heads to a nearby cave. Bachmann, an assistant professor of chemistry at Vanderbilt, has combined his industrial experience in… Read More

Jonathan Haines and his colleagues at Vanderbilt are part of a global collaboration to discover and map all genes relating to Alzheimer's disease. (Daniel Dubois / Vanderbilt University) Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and across the globe, announced today a multi-national collaboration to discover and map all genes relating… Read More

Physicist James Dickerson, left, and graduate student Saad Hasan (Photo by Daniel Dubois) Windshields that shed water so effectively that they don’t need wipers.  Ship hulls so slippery that they glide through the water more efficiently than ordinary hulls. These are some of the potential applications for graphene, one of… Read More

(Photo credit: iStock photo) Breast cancer patients who have a strong social support system in the first year after diagnosis are less likely to die or have a recurrence of cancer, according to new research from Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and the Shanghai Institute of Preventive Medicine. The study, led… Read More

(iStock Photo) Individuals with schizophrenia are better at some cognitive tasks than average people, new research from Vanderbilt University indicates. The findings open the door for potential new therapies for these individuals. Katy Thakkar and Sohee Park (Mary Donaldson/Vanderbilt University) “We found a pocket of spared or enhanced ability in… Read More

Do your children think you work too much and don’t spend enough time with them? If so, their perception could lead to bullying behavior, according to research by Vanderbilt University sociologist Andre Christie-Mizell. “Our behavior is driven by our perception of our world, so if children feel they… Read More

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III collaboration, which includes Vanderbilt University, has resulted in a picture of the sky so big that it would take 500,000 high-definition TVs to view it at full resolution. The color image contains more than a trillion pixels and covers about one-third of the entire sky. 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

(Photo credit: iStock photo) Brain scans of adolescents with dyslexia can be used to predict the future improvement of their reading skills with an accuracy rate of up to 90 percent, new research indicates. Advanced analyses of the brain activity images are significantly more accurate in driving predictions than standardized… Read More

Nashville Jazz Band, directed by Jim Williamson, performing in Ingram Hall with the Blair Big Band. (Photo credit: Vanderbilt University / Steve Green) Proponents of creating a cultural tax district for Nashville would need to identify community-specific goals that address voters’ shared values and ideals, according to a report prepared… 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