Vanderbilt Institute For Infection Immunology And Inflammation

When bacterial pathogens enter our bodies, they’ve got one goal—hunt for food to multiply. And during the process, they make us sick. Eric Skaar, Ernest W. Goodpasture Professor of Pathology and director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology and Inflammation, is uncovering how pathogens compete with healthy microbes for essential nutrients. He was recently elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Read More

The “Molecular Muse” art exhibit on display in Light Hall is a sampling of pieces from the Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology, and Inflammation Artist-in-Residence (VI4-AiR) program, which brings together scientists and artists to create and promote art as a visual science communication tool. Read More

he awards identify and honor the hard work and leadership of graduate students at Vanderbilt, recognizing graduate student leaders on a school-wide level. Awards given this year included a service award, mentorship award, departmental leadership award, research award and best overall award. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers detail the landscape of RNA editing — a form of RNA modification — in primary effusion lymphoma cells during Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus infection and identify an edited viral microRNA that is critical for infection. Read More

Vanderbilt's Wenhan Zhu, PhD, has received a three-year award from the G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Foundation to support his research that aims to answer a fundamental question about bacterial physiology and engineer probiotics to improve gut inflammatory diseases. 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

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

A team led by Vanderbilt researchers has described and characterized the first zinc metallochaperone: a protein that puts zinc into other “client” proteins. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers are studying a bacterial pathogen that can survive on hospital surfaces — without water — for months, an ability that has helped it become a leading cause of hospital-acquired infections. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have identified a critical regulatory factor in the bacterium that causes the disease anthrax and has been used as a biological weapon. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers help answer the question of why patients with autoimmune diseases like lupus are more susceptible to bacterial infections: their neutrophils have impaired antibacterial activity. Read More

H. pylori infection — a strong risk factor for stomach cancer — changes the composition of stomach lipids, which could offer new biomarkers for detecting premalignant changes, Vanderbilt researchers discovered. Read More

The invading pathogen Salmonella, a common cause of food poisoning, can change its metabolism to overcome host resistance to its colonization. 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

An innovative Vanderbilt program that brings together scientists and artists with the shared goal of scientific communication is set to expand with support from a three-year grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. Read More

Understanding immunity generated by smallpox vaccine may hold lessons for COVID-19 vaccine development. Read More

Understanding how bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics and host stresses could guide the development of more effective antimicrobial therapeutics. Read More

Vanderbilt immunologists have discovered that the protein Nur77 is part of a control mechanism that guards against autoimmunity in natural killer T cells. Read More

Bacterial invasion of vaginal cells sets up a protective niche and a reservoir for recurrent urinary tract infections, Vanderbilt researchers demonstrated. Read More