Research

Radiation is known to destroy some breast cancer cells, but new research published in Cell Reports shows that it might also make some surrounding tissue more prone to cancerous cell growth. Vanderbilt postdoctoral fellow Kevin Corn conducted much of the study’s work with Assistant Professor Marjan Rafat. “When we think about radiation, we usually focus on tumor cells,” Rafat said. “But the surrounding tissue is also responding, and that can shape what happens after treatment.” By addressing processes in that surrounding tissue, they hope to reduce the chance that breast cancer will recur. Read More

On March 24, Chancellor Daniel Diermeier and Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs C. Cybele Raver honored scholars from across Vanderbilt at an endowed chair investiture ceremony. Read More

Vanderbilt’s dedicated institutional review board for social, behavioral and educational research soft-launched a year ago. The VU SBER IRB, now fully operational, strengthens Vanderbilt’s support for human-participant research while incorporating feedback from the research community.  Read More

Everything you touch was developed by basic science, says Ian Macara, chair of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology. From food varieties and new crops, to your phone, your computer and the plastics we use every day, everything originally came out of a basic research lab. Macara's department, within the School of Medicine Basic Sciences, aims to train the next generation of scientists to advance basic biomedical research at the cellular, molecular and organismal levels. Read More

Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center rank 24th nationally in the National Science Foundation’s 2024 Higher Education Research and Development Survey, with combined research and development expenditures of $1.33 billion. The ranking places Vanderbilt 10th among private research universities. Read More

Vanderbilt University has announced its fall 2025 recipients of the Seeding Success, Scaling Success and Rapid-Advancement MicroGrant Program awards, providing internal funding to help faculty launch new research directions, strengthen proposals and compete for major external grants. Read More

Susan Margulies, former assistant director of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Engineering and a distinguished professor at the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, has been appointed vice provost for research and innovation, with her appointment beginning June 1. She will be tasked with defining a vision for—and driving—the next generation of growth in Vanderbilt’s research enterprise. Read More

By Jenna Somers A new study finds that a culturally sustaining treatment can help nearly half of young Spanish-speaking children with early language delays improve their skills significantly—five times more than standard care alone. Led by researchers at Vanderbilt University Peabody College of education and human development, the… Read More

Vanderbilt University announced seven recipients of the Innovation Catalyst Fund awards for the October 2025 cycle. The awards offer strategic pre-seed funding to help faculty across a wide range of disciplines turn promising research concepts into tangible solutions that address fundamental societal needs.  Read More

In 2021, Kathleen Seabolt, executive director, Vanderbilt Child & Family Center , founded the Owls kindergarten as a pilot program at The Acorn School, which provides care for young children of Vanderbilt University faculty and staff. Beginning in the fall of 2026, Owls will migrate across campus to join the Susan Gray School, Vanderbilt’s inclusive pre-school that is part of Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development. Read More

Research into combating cocaine addiction has been limited by the difficulty in structuring accurate animal models; standard practice relies on implanting IV catheters that the animals can use to self-dose. Now Assistant Professor Cody Siciliano's lab has devised a method that more closely mimics cocaine use in humans—effectively, a way for the animals to snort cocaine. This makes the animal model more analogous to human experience, and it reduces surgical and intravenous procedures for the animals. "This model provides a powerful framework for linking motivated drug use with real-time neural activity, offering new opportunities to study the circuitry underlying reinforcement and decision-making," Siciliano said. Read More

When people choose from a large set of options, there is likely one that aligns closely with their particular preferences. When there are fewer options, their choice is less likely to reflect a strong opinion—they're just choosing the one that is any amount closer to what they think. This can be misinterpreted, researchers say, as deep enthusiasm. And it can lead to polarization, because people tend to not consider how many options were available when forming an opinion about others' choices. Read More

Vanderbilt University’s Center for Global Democracy is the new U.S. institutional home for the Comparative Study of Election Surveys, a leading global resource for understanding elections and democratic governance. This move strengthens Vanderbilt’s leadership in global democracy research, building on three decades of international collaborations and the CSES’s reputation as the premier source of comparative electoral survey data. Read More

He leads groundbreaking work creating robotic tools to make surgeries safer. Now, with a passion for partnership, see how Robert Webster is carving a path for others to take their life-changing innovations and turn them into reality. Read More

Soldiers spend a lot of time wearing body armor. The added weight takes a toll on their shoulders and back, contributing to one of the most common injuries reported by U.S. Army soldiers: back overuse. Vanderbilt researchers have developed a two-pound wearable device that redistributes 90 percent of that weight to the wearer’s hips while standing, walking and sitting—and lets soldiers retain their full agility and freedom of movement. Associate Professor Karl Zelik, senior research engineer Chad Ice and Ph.D. graduate Paul Slaughter published the study. Read More

While using an ice pack to ease pain is nothing new, a Vanderbilt team has taken the concept high-tech. Associate Professor Leon Bellan leads the group that has developed a cold-triggered “depot”—an implantable device that releases medication from within the body on demand. This shows promise on two fronts: Patients can release the medication simply by putting an ice pack over the implant, and locally effective NSAID drugs can be used instead of more addictive opioids. Read More

At Vanderbilt, research doesn’t just live in the lab. It moves into the world in the shape of new tools, treatments and technologies that improve lives, support communities and expand what’s possible. Read More

Meet two student-professor teams using AI and social media to take their musical Immersion research to a new level. Read More

As a research institution, the two “products” Vanderbilt puts into the world are alumni and the research produced. Whether it’s helping to cure cancer, inspire with art, or promote sustainability, Vanderbilt students learn to apply the combination of practical skills and confidence that can only be gained from experience to a broad range of fields—positioning them to be much more effective in translating their education to results outside the classroom. Read More

In 2024, eleven teams of graduate students received Lacy-Fischer Interdisciplinary Research Grants to support projects ranging from advanced optical technologies and gravitational wave detection to medical innovations and autonomous vehicle safety. Read More