Research

A novel hormone deficiency may exist in humans, Vanderbilt investigators have discovered. In an analysis of two decades worth of electronic health records, the researchers found that some patients have unexpectedly low levels of natriuretic peptide hormone in clinical situations that should cause high levels of the hormone. Read More

Strong, collaborative relationships with principal investigators are a key factor of longevity in clinical research coordinator positions — an essential, but increasingly transient job in executing treatment-advancing clinical trials, Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers found. Read More

Professor of Sociology Holly McCammon studies how U.S. women have banded together to achieve political and social change through court cases that bolster their rights. Read More

The emergence of pathogenic skin fungi that cause the disease chytridiomycosis is contributing to the global loss of amphibian populations.  Read More

Vanderbilt engineers used  a drop of rubbing alcohol, an office laminator and creativity to develop scalable processes for manufacturing single atom thin membranes. Their membranes outperformed state-of-the-art dialysis commercial membranes and the approach is fully compatible with roll-to-roll manufacturing. Details of the imaginative experiment are recently published in the journal of the Royal Chemistry Society:... Read More

A probiotic factor given early in life to mice prevented intestinal inflammation in adulthood, providing a rationale for probiotic intervention in individuals at high risk of developing inflammatory bowel disease. Read More

Disrupting the action of glucagon — a pancreatic hormone that works to raise blood glucose — restores functional insulin-producing cells in mouse models of type 1 diabetes and may be a promising treatment strategy. Read More

Seth Bordenstein, Centennial Professor of Biological Sciences and director of the Vanderbilt Microbiome Initiative, has been elected to fellowship in the American Academy of Microbiology. Read More

Allison Schachter, an associate professor of Jewish studies, English, and Russian and East European studies, developed a new theory about the role of women who made lasting and meaningful contributions to Jewish culture and history in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Read More

A team led by Vanderbilt engineers has achieved the ability to transmit two different types of optical signals across a single chip at the same time. The breakthrough heralds a potentially dramatic increase in the volume of data a silicon chip can transmit over any period of time. With this project, the research team moved... Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center is the busiest cochlear implant center in the U.S., performing more than 300 implant surgeries each year. A key driver is close collaboration among engineers, surgeons, audiologists, speech scientists and other experts. This interdisciplinary, trans-institutional work has enabled a truly customized approach for each patient. Research teams have developed image-guided surgery for... Read More

The Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering is an interdisciplinary, trans-institutional structure designed to facilitate interactions and exchanges between engineers and physicians. Engineering expertise includes modeling, robotics, imaging, image processing and analysis, devices, system integration, and instrumentation. A significant VISE clinical application has been the development of minimally invasive,… Read More

Blythe Corbett, PhD, professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and investigator with the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, recently led a study which found that on average, females with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experienced the onset of puberty 9.5 months earlier than their peers. Read More

Mukesh Jain, MD, vice dean for Academic Affairs and Medical Sciences and professor of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University, will discuss the discovery of aging-related disease genes and pathways during the next web-based Discovery Lecture. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have linked bone-related complications of severely injured patients — findings that could help minimize these complications. Read More

In patients with glioblastoma brain tumors, features detected on MRIs at diagnosis were associated with survival, Vanderbilt Medical Center investigators found. 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

Genetic variation that impacts glucose- and insulin-related signaling affects responses to type 2 diabetes treatments and warrants further study. Read More

Laboratory and administrative personnel at Vanderbilt University Medical Center were honored last week for research excellence during the 17th annual Research Staff Awards, held virtually this year because of the pandemic. Read More

Valeria Reyes Ruiz, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, has been selected as a 2020 Hanna Gray Fellow by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). Read More