Research, News & Discoveries

Researchers from the labs of Hassane Mchaourab and Richard O’Brien, both professors of molecular physiology and biophysics, have successfully isolated active glucose-6-phosphatase (G6Pase) and characterized its biophysical and biochemical properties. G6Pase dysfunction is a primary contributor to metabolic diseases, including diabetes, and labs have been trying for years to isolate… Read More

The history of hermeneutics started with Aristotle—parts comprise the whole. To understand the whole, we need to understand the parts. And to understand the parts, we need to understand them in the context of the whole. Carlos F. Lopez, associate professor of biochemistry, described this concept and its connection to… Read More

Patients that sustain severe trauma are at high risk of mortality that comes in waves and may occur days to weeks after injury. Not only are patients at risk for dying at the time of injury, but a second wave of death occurs hours after the injury, from bleeding, and… Read More

A quick guide for Vanderbilt University Basic Sciences This quick guide was assembled by Chuck Sanders, with much input from Vanderbilt Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization officers Alan Bentley and Mike Villalobos. [row] [column number=12 class=breakout] “I have a concept or prototype for an invention, biological material, software,… Read More

With a heavy heart, we share that Brenda Crews, senior research specialist of the Marnett Lab in the Department of Biochemistry, has passed away. A loyal ‘Dore, Brenda was with Vanderbilt for more than 40 years, and a member of the Marnett lab for nearly 30 of those years! Lab… Read More

Jan. 13, 2022, 10:40 AM by Bill Snyder Transmembrane receptors called integrins and proteins called laminins play important roles in the formation and function of tissues, including the ducts that collect urine from the filtering units of the kidneys.  To better understand their role, Roy Zent,… Read More

Lars Plate, assistant professor of chemistry and biological sciences, is on a team that won $55,000 from Scialog’s initiative, Chemical Machinery of the Cell. The award—one of 24 granted to 21 researchers in the U.S. and Canada—will enable… Read More

Researchers at Vanderbilt University and the University of Arizona have revealed more of the inner-workings of a two-stage “molecular motor” in the cell membrane that enables bacteria to become resistant to drugs. Their findings, which were reported recently in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, will aid the search for inhibitors… Read More

Vanderbilt has extended its longest ongoing drug discovery agreement with Osaka, Japan-based Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., a research and development-oriented pharmaceutical company that is committed to creating innovative medicines in specific areas, through November 2023. The initial agreement was signed in November… Read More

by Tom Wilemon A team of Vanderbilt researchers has revealed some of the mechanisms by which polyps develop into colorectal cancer, setting the framework for improved surveillance for the cancer utilizing precision medicine. Their study, published Dec. 14 in Cell, describes findings from a single-cell transcriptomic and imaging atlas… Read More