Research, News & Discoveries

Prior to Akil’s remarks, the 2025 Vanderbilt Prize Student Scholar, Kimberly Bress, an MD-PhD candidate mentored by Akil, briefly described her dissertation research, which applies functional magnetic resonance imaging to study facial expressions (nonverbal communication) in people with autism spectrum disorder. Read More

The Vanderbilt Vision Research Center was founded in 1989 and secured the National Eye Institute core grant that still supports it; the grant will provide approximately $3.3 million over the current five-year funding period. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers led by Ann Richmond have identified a promising drug combination that targets three key pathways in advanced melanoma, potentially restoring the immune response in patients resistant to standard immunotherapy. Although the work is preclinical, the use of drugs already in clinical trials for other conditions could accelerate testing in humans. Read More

Overleaf is a web-based LaTeX code editor that enables users to write, edit and publish scientific documents. It simplifies the creation of complex documents with precise layouts by incorporating equations, figures and bibliographies seamlessly, making it ideal for structured writing and eliminating the need to install LaTeX software locally. It is now available to Vanderbilt students, faculty and staff free of charge. Read More

A Middle Tennessee native, Chase Spurlock, PhD’14, was drawn to Vanderbilt University for its excellence in healthcare and science. A project he completed in graduate school ignited in him a desire to impact patient lives through academic-industry partnerships, and he has not looked back since. Read More

In the hunt for new therapeutics for cancer and infectious diseases, lasso peptides prove to be a catch. Their knot-like structures afford these molecules high stability and diverse biological activities, making them a promising avenue for new therapeutics. To better unleash their clinical potential, a team co-led by Doug Mitchell developed LassoESM, a new large language model for predicting lasso peptide properties. Read More

A new image analysis tool called TrueSpot has the capacity to overhaul the quantity and quality of usable data that can be obtained from fluorescence microscopy, which is used across an enormous range of biological, biomedical, and physical research. Read More

Meet Hannah Waterman, a fifth year Ph.D. candidate in the lab of Alan Cherrington in the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics. Read More

Meet David Stiles, a senior financial analyst for the School of Medicine Basic Sciences. Read More