Nature

Right now, these native “flowers” are blooming in Nashville—at least, until they melt, which is typically right after they form. Frost flowers are winter ephemerals. They happen when air temperature drops below freezing and warm groundwater rises to extrude itself through the conduit of a real flower stem, especially if that stem is a white crownbeard (Verbesina virginica). “Ice segregation” is the process at work. Water and vapor freeze on contact with air, and waves from within push older crystals forward and out. Read More

The study reported in the journal Nature provides a mechanistic explanation for the “obesity paradox” — that obesity can contribute to cancer progression but also improve response to immunotherapy. Read More

An analysis of genomic data from nearly 250,000 participants in the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program has identified more than 275 million previously unreported genetic variations, nearly 4 million of which have potential health consequences. Read More

A front-end lens, or meta-imager, created at Vanderbilt University can potentially replace traditional imaging optics in machine-vision applications, producing images at higher speed and using less power. Read More

Vanderbilt mechanical engineering professors Deyu Li and Josh Caldwell are part of a team of researchers who have discovered a new heat dissipation channel using phonon polaritons that could have extensive implications for novel cooling technologies in devices like smart phones and other modern electronics. 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

Several Vanderbilt faculty members are among an international roster of scholars presenting research at the Nature conference, “Bioengineering for Global Health,” at Vanderbilt University Nov. 13–15. Faculty members from the Department of Biomedical Engineering and editors from Nature Communications, Nature Biomedical Engineering and Nature Reviews Bioengineering led the organization of the conference. Read More

Nature Conferences has selected Vanderbilt University to host a conference Nov. 13–15, 2023, focused on developing innovative diagnostic, treatment and disease-monitoring platforms to improve human health around the world. Read More

A team of biomedical researchers from 16 top engineering programs in the nation, which includes Vanderbilt's Audrey Bowden, has developed a set of processes that helps eliminate traditional barriers to historically excluded groups pursuing academic careers in biomedical engineering. Read More

An international coalition of biomedical researchers co-led by Vanderbilt's Alexander Bick, MD, PhD, has determined a new way to measure the growth rate of precancerous clones of blood stem cells that one day could help doctors lower their patients’ risk of blood cancer. Read More

Campus planners have developed an official tree replacement policy to ensure that Vanderbilt’s tree canopy is preserved whenever building projects are initiated or trees die naturally. Read More

Researchers from from Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center have identified the mechanism for the deadly heart inflammation myocarditis. Read More

Joshua Caldwell, Flowers Family Chancellor’s Faculty Fellow in Engineering and associate professor of mechanical engineering, and Joseph Matson, a graduate student in Caldwell’s lab, have contributed to an international study that has discovered a new type of light-matter coupling. The work has long-term implications for how optical components can be even further miniaturized, a discovery... Read More

A massive worldwide collaboration including researchers from Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) has identified several genetic factors associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe COVID-19 illness. Read More

Five monoclonal antibody “cocktails,” including one developed at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), are protective in animal studies against several variant strains of COVID-19, according to a report this week in the journal Nature. Read More

Tumors consume glucose at high rates, but a team of Vanderbilt researchers has discovered that cancer cells themselves are not the culprit, upending models of cancer metabolism that have been developed and refined over the last 100 years. Read More

AstraZeneca is advancing into phase 3 clinical trials with an investigational COVID-19 therapy of two long-acting antibodies discovered by Vanderbilt University Medical Center and optimized by AstraZeneca. Read More

Stars mapped out by Vanderbilt astronomers for exploration by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite mission and recently decommissioned Spitzer Space Telescope have led to the discovery of AU Mic b, a newly formed Neptune-like exoplanet located a relatively short 31.9 light-years away. Read More

A study published June 17 in Nature offers clues as to why blocking inhibitory receptors on tumor-infiltrating T cells may not always work Read More

The Nature Index tracks author affiliation information from articles published in 68 prestigious natural science journals and ranks institutions according to their rate of inclusion in those journals. Read More