Research

Angela Jefferson, PhD, professor of Neurology and director of the Vanderbilt Memory and Alzheimer’s Center, has been awarded a $3.7 million, three-year grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to support establishment of a prospective NIA-funded Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Read More

Women with three or more uterine fibroids — non-cancerous growths — during pregnancy are more likely to have infants with reduced birthweight and may need additional surveillance. Read More

New findings demonstrate how genetic variations in the receptor that binds SARS-CoV-2 impact virus recognition and infectivity and offer insights to COVID-19 susceptibility and treatment. Read More

Combining studies of genetically diverse mouse populations and human data led to the identification of a gene associated with cognitive decline and brain changes in Alzheimer’s disease. Read More

Tina Iverson and colleagues provide a structural view into the assembly of a protein machine essential for cellular energy production. Read More

Vanderbilt University historian Thomas Schwartz has written a biography of famed diplomat Henry Kissinger that offers lessons for today’s political leaders. Read More

Vanderbilt engineers have received a $1.4 million NIH grant to work toward a compact, silent, less expensive and potentially portable MRI device. Read More

Physician-scientists at Vanderbilt University Medical Center are investigating whether SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can be spread through aerosolized emissions (microscopic droplets and particles) during minimally invasive surgery in children. Read More

Taking an interest in electronic message threads between surgical patients and their health care teams, a research group at Vanderbilt University Medical Center has tested how well certain commonly used machine learning algorithms can classify such exchanges according to their clinical decision-making complexity. Read More

Nobel Prize-winning chemical engineer Frances Arnold will deliver Vanderbilt's fall John R. and Donna S. Hall Engineering Lecture on Tuesday, Sept. 15, at 4 p.m. Arnold's lecture, “Innovation by Evolution: Bringing New Chemistry to Life,” will be live streamed, and registration is required. Read More

Combining two drugs reduced colorectal cancer cell growth in vitro and in an animal model, suggesting the combination may be a promising treatment for patients. Read More

Surgical patients are being given more opioids than they need for postsurgical pain management, raising the risk of addiction. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has been awarded a one-year, $34-million grant by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, to conduct a nationwide study of “convalescent plasma” as a treatment for COVID-19. Read More

Excess dietary salt activates immune cells to induce inflammation and hypertension, supporting current recommendations for low sodium consumption. Read More

All software is not created equal. At one end are apps on a smartphone and consumer-facing programs for which periodic updates to fix bugs and security issues are routine, like replacing an air conditioning filter or getting an annual flu shot. At the other end are large, complex software systems such as software used in... Read More

Vanderbilt scientists have discovered a new target for normalizing tumor blood vessels to improve cancer immunotherapies. Read More

A small-molecule “scavenger” that reduces inflammation and formation of atherosclerotic plaque in blood vessels in mice potentially could lead to a new approach for treating atherosclerosis in humans, according to researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Read More

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have identified antibodies that, in animals, block infection by alphaviruses, which can cause chronic and debilitating joint pain and arthritis and are an increasing global health concern. Read More

In laboratory experiments, a chemical compound found in the shell of the cashew nut promotes the repair of myelin, a team from Vanderbilt University Medical Center reported Aug. 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read More

Developing atomically thin graphene membranes used to separate salt from water is extraordinarily complex and the effort grows more crucial as population growth, industrialization and climate change strain freshwater resources. Vanderbilt engineering researchers report a breakthrough in scalable fabrication of graphene membrane with a sealing technology that corrects variations in the pore size so they... Read More