Discoveries

Atrial fibrillation (A-fib) — the most common cardiac arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat) — is associated with increased risk of stroke, heart failure, dementia and death. Antiarrhythmic drug therapy to prevent A-fib has remained elusive. The strongest genetic risk factors for A-fib in humans are variants in a chromosomal region including the gene… Read More

When Waddell Walker Hancock founded the A.B. Hancock Jr. Memorial Laboratory for Cancer Research 40 years ago at Vanderbilt, she was determined that the right combination of imagination, perseverance and scientific talent could win the fight against cancer. Hancock Lab researchers have earned many national honors and 13 patents for… Read More

Antentor Hinton Jr., assistant professor of molecular physiology and biophysics, has co-authored the cover story of the June issue of Cellalong with 51 Black scientists. The article, “Juneteenth in STEMM and the barriers to equitable science,” establishes the context of Juneteenth in… Read More

Thirteen outstanding faculty members from across the university have been selected for the 2023 cohort of Chancellor Faculty Fellows. This group is composed of highly accomplished, recently tenured faculty from a wide variety of disciplines and areas of expertise.   “As we reflect on the 150th anniversary of our founding, we’re… Read More

Jackson Roberts II, MD, an internationally known clinical pharmacologist in the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine who helped define the role of lipid peroxidation and oxidative stress in human disease, died May 31 in Nashville. He was 79. Dr. Roberts, professor of Pharmacology and Medicine, emeritus, was perhaps best known… Read More

By Leah Mann The labs of Lauren Jackson, associate professor of biological sciences and biochemistry, and Todd Graham, Stevenson Professor of Biological Sciences at the College of Arts and Science and professor of cell and developmental biology, recently published a study in the Journal of Cell Biology… Read More

Source material and recommended further reading related to “Fluorine in Protein Chemistry: Going Where Mother Nature Deigned to Go” by Chuck Sanders. CF2H, a Hydrogen Bond Donor J Am Chem Soc. 2017 139:9325-9332. doi: 10.1021/jacs.7b04457. Epub 2017 Jun 27. Chanan D Sessler,… Read More

By Alexandra Scammell There are major inflection points in biomedical discovery that create new fields, new ideas, and new opportunities to impact human health. To recognize scientists at the pinnacle of their fields who have contributed to these inflection points, the Vanderbilt School of Medicine Basic Sciences is… Read More

To recognize scientists who are at the forefront of sea-change advances in biomedical discovery, the Vanderbilt School of Medicine Basic Sciences is launching the Apex Lecture Series. These school-wide seminars, which occasionally will be in conjunction with departmental and/or center seminar series, will connect Vanderbilt’s campus scientific community with scientists… Read More

An international collaboration steered by David Cortez, Richard N. Armstrong, Ph.D. Chair for Innovation in Biochemistry, explored how cells tolerate DNA damage and genome instability—and they arrived at conclusions that will redirect research into DNA replication as a target for cancer and disease therapeutics. Cells continuously divide… Read More