Research, News & Discoveries

Dr. Ethan Lee, professor of cell and developmental biology and pharmacology, has been named a 2022 Innovation Fund investigator by The Pew Charitable Trusts. As a vote of confidence in the power of collaborative, interdisciplinary research, Pew created the Innovation Fund in 2017 to encourage partnerships among alumni of Pew’s  biomedical programs. Combining… Read More

Assistant Professor of Biochemistry Emily Hodges and graduate student Tyler Hansen used a blended approach to create a new, multi-omic method to identify and characterize gene regulatory elements—non-coding DNA sequences that control gene expression—in the human genome. The new technique, ATAC-STARR-seq, was published in Genome Research. During… Read More

One in 100 people have genetic variations that can cause potentially life-threatening heart conditions, including high cholesterol (lipid disorders), heart muscle disease (cardiomyopathies), and abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias). Yet the functional impact of most of these cardiovascular genetic variants — whether they disrupt normal function or are harmless — is… Read More

The Stanley Cohen Innovation Fund provides a yearly award to support innovative and groundbreaking research at Vanderbilt University. This year, after a competitive application process, Emily Hodges, assistant professor of biochemistry, and Terunaga Nakagawa, associate professor of molecular physiology and biophysics, were named as the 2022 recipients. Read More

Obesity and overnutrition increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes through several mechanisms. One of these is through loss of the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreatic islet.  Wenbiao Chen, PhD, and colleagues previously have shown that overnutrition stressed the endoplasmic reticulum, the part of the beta… Read More

John Wilson, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Vanderbilt University, has received a $3 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to develop technology that seeks to boost a person’s immune system to better fight cancer. Wilson is the Principal Investigator of the five-year grant. He specializes in… Read More

Alissa Weaver, Professor and Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair, Vanderbilt University, and Matthew Tyska, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor, Vanderbilt University have been named 2022 ASCB Fellows. “The 2022 ASCB Fellows are individuals who have contributed broadly and significantly to the cell biology community and to the Society. We honor their scientific achievement and their… Read More

Nancy Carrasco was recently named a 2023 Biophysical Society Fellow “for her broad-reaching studies of the sodium/iodide transporter including cloning and structure determination together with its roles in physiology and disease, and her impressive service to the Biophysics community.” The Biophysical Society is delighted to announce its 2023 Society Fellows. Read More

By Emily Overway Thanks to a partnership between the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Basic Sciences, the Office of the Vice Provost for Research, and the Office of the Provost, all graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, staff, and primary faculty in Basic Sciences will gain access to BioRender Premium… Read More

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) — the most common form of lupus — is an autoimmune disease that causes widespread inflammation and tissue damage. David Harrison, MD, and colleagues have now described a new mechanism responsible for SLE.  They found that in humans with SLE and in two… Read More