Research, News & Discoveries

Laboratory and administrative personnel at Vanderbilt University Medical Center were honored March 4 for research excellence during the 18th annual Research Staff Awards Ceremony at the Aertson Hotel in Nashville. Jennifer Pietenpol, PhD, director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and VUMC’s Executive Vice President for Research, and Lawrence Marnett, PhD,… Read More

John Wikswo, founder and director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education and Gordon A. Cain University Professor, is the principal investigator of a $1 million award from the National Science Foundation. The object is to build a pathbreaking… Read More

Cancer cells metastasize, or spread to different parts of the body, by escaping from a primary tumor and invading neighboring tissues. To penetrate normal tissue barriers, migrating cancer cells form membrane protrusions called invadopodia that degrade the surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM).  Aron Parekh, PhD, and colleagues… Read More

Heidi Hamm, Yun Young Yim By Emily Overway Researchers in the lab of Heidi Hamm, a professor of pharmacology who also holds the Aileen M. Lange and Annie Mary Lyle Chair in Cardiovascular Research, recently published a paper exploring the G protein subunits that interact with the SNARE complex. The… Read More

Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier and Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs C. Cybele Raver honored faculty from across the university at an endowed chair investiture ceremony on campus Feb. 24, conferring the university’s highest scholastic rank on those who had received the designation during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020… Read More

L-R: Ann Richmond, Chi Yan By Wendy Bindeman Ann Richmond, professor of pharmacology, and Chi Yan, a research assistant professor in the Richmond lab, recently published a study showing that expression of a protein called CD40 can be used to predict response to immunotherapy in malignant melanoma. Read More

Many melanoma patients are treated with drugs called BRAF or MEK inhibitors that specifically target the mutant proteins created in cancerous tumors.  These inhibitors can block the tumors’ ability to grow and spread. According to Ann Richmond, Ingram Professor of Cancer Research and professor of pharmacology… Read More

Registration is now open for a special panel discussion about the future of COVID-19, featuring some of Vanderbilt University’s leading experts in COVID vaccines, infectious disease and public health. The virtual discussion, “The COVID Conundrum: What’s Next,” will be Thursday, March 10, at noon CT. Panelists… Read More

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have made a fundamental discovery about how the heart compensates for genetic variations that otherwise could trigger abnormal and potentially fatal heart rhythms. Their findings, reported recently in the journal Circulation, add significantly to understanding what causes abnormal heart rhythms, or arrhythmias, and… Read More

Vanderbilt University has signed an exclusive, worldwide license and a research collaboration agreement with Neumora Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering precision medicines for brain diseases through the integration of data science and neuroscience.   The licensed program centers around the M4 muscarinic receptor positive allosteric modulator—including… Read More