Research

Sankaran Mahadevan, John R. Murray Sr. Professor of Engineering and civil and environmental engineering professor, is the winner of the 2022 IASSAR Distinguished Research Award. The award is presented every four years to two eminent senior researchers by the International Association on Structural Safety and Reliability at its quadrennial meeting. IASSAR promotes the study, research... Read More

The trans-institutional initiative is an ongoing collaboration of Fisk University, the Frist Art Museum, Millions of Conversations and Vanderbilt University that explores creative approaches to living together in the global South.  Read More

Vanderbilt researchers are studying precancerous lesions and early cancers in the colon, with the goal of developing new ways to prevent colorectal cancer, the nation’s second leading cancer killer. Read More

Vanderbilt University welcomes 74 new faculty across its nine schools and colleges for the 2022–23 academic year. Here, some of the university’s new faculty share their academic collaborations. Read More

The Wallace Foundation recently awarded a four-year, $1.42 million grant to Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development and Mathematica for a new study to expand knowledge about assistant principals and provide new insights on how the role can help diversify the principal profession and advance educational equity.  Read More

Neuroblastoma is one of the most common—and lethal—forms of childhood cancer, accounting for 15 percent of pediatric cancer deaths each year. (Despite the name, neuroblastoma is not a form of brain cancer; it typically consists of tumors found in the abdomen, chest, neck, pelvis and bones.) Currently, children with neuroblastoma are treated with aggressive forms... Read More

Neuroblastoma is one of the most common—and lethal—forms of childhood cancer, accounting for 15 percent of pediatric cancer deaths each year. (Despite the name, neuroblastoma is not a form of brain cancer; it typically consists of tumors found in the abdomen, chest, neck, pelvis and bones.) Currently, children with neuroblastoma are treated with aggressive forms... Read More

A new model suggests that a protein involved in the generation of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) works differently than previously thought. Read More

Vanderbilt University welcomes 74 new faculty across its nine schools and colleges for the 2022–23 academic year. Here, some of the professors share what inspires them in their journey of learning, discovery, problem-solving and teaching. Read More

As the population of older adults continues to boom across the U.S., Vanderbilt researcher Nilanjan Sarkar is partnering with Lorraine Mion of the Ohio State University and two Middle Tennessee long-term care (LTC) facilities to investigate how augmented reality technologies can ease loneliness among residents. Sarkar, the David K. Wilson Professor of Engineering and a... Read More

Vanderbilt University has been chosen by the National Science Foundation to lead the new Mid-South Innovation Corps Hub, a group of nine universities that make up a regional coalition of diverse, tech-forward institutions to promote inclusive innovation, spur economic development and prosperity and transform Midsouth metro areas into growth and commercialization centers for STEM-related technologies. Read More

John Wilson, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Vanderbilt University, has received a $3 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to develop technology that seeks to boost a person’s immune system to better fight cancer. Wilson is the Principal Investigator of the five-year grant. He specializes in the study of cancer immunotherapy... Read More

New Vanderbilt research could inform therapeutic strategies for enhancing thymic function when desired — such as during aging, recovery from radiation therapy or chemotherapy, or other conditions that reduce T cell output. Read More

A new study by Vanderbilt researchers demonstrates the ability to initiate chemical reactions by cooling materials instead of heating them— a counterintuitive process that could open new vistas for applications ranging from monitoring shipping conditions to developing smart clothing that guards against dangerously low temperatures. The paper, published in August by the journal RSC Advances,... Read More

Gastrointestinal inflammation, such as occurs in inflammatory bowel disease, triggers the expansion of a population of “bone-eating” cells, leading to bone loss. Read More

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have discovered why the uropathogenic bacterium E. coli, the leading cause of urinary tract infections, is so tenacious; their findings could lead to new ways to prevent recurrent UTIs. Read More

Robert Webster, Richard A. Schroeder Professor of Mechanical Engineering and associate professor of medicine and urology at Vanderbilt University, is part of a collaborative team that has received a more than $2.3 million grant to further develop technology that seeks to prevent patients from having invasive colectomies by using steerable robot-like instruments. Under his second startup... Read More

A professor and undergraduate student in Vanderbilt University’s School of Engineering are both recipients of esteemed 2022-2023 Fulbright awards that allow scholars to teach and conduct research abroad. Ravindra Duddu is an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and Kristi Maisha is a civil engineering major. Duddu will use his Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship to... Read More

by Bill Snyder The growth of epithelial ovarian cancer, one of the most lethal malignancies, is associated with the presence of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs), white blood cells that can block the anti-cancer activity of the immune system and immunotherapy. Fortunately, TAMs can be “repolarized,” converted from immunosuppressive tumor-promoters to inflammatory tumor-fighters. Now, Associate Professor of Pharmacology Fiona Yull,... Read More

Two leading energy companies that used a Vanderbilt-pioneered process to develop safer nuclear reactors received a prestigious technology award from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in June. A team led by Steve Krahn, professor of the practice of nuclear environmental engineering, worked in collaboration with EPRI to develop a “safety-in-design” methodology that was adopted... Read More