Research, News & Discoveries

The burning sensation you feel in your mouth when you sip alcohol has a name: oral chemesthesis. Understanding this sensation better could lead to new treatments for alcohol use disorders, but research in this area is scarce. Assistant Professor of Pharmacology Cody Siciliano aims to change that with his project, “Neural Mechanisms of Oral Chemesthesis,” which has been awarded a $1.3 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation. Read More

To honor and continue Richard Caprioli’s legacy of teaching technological advances, the Richard Caprioli Basic Sciences Research Award for Technology Education fund has been established to allow Ph.D. students in the biomedical sciences to attend focused educational experiences in a technology that they would otherwise not encounter in their graduate studies. Read More

Over her two decades in the department, Jenkins has worked alongside the program’s educational leadership, managing student recruitment and enrollment, organizing critical data for DBMI’s National Library of Medicine grant, budgeting, overseeing weekly informatics seminars and planning social activities for students. Read More

Vanderbilt University graduate student Mary Oliver and her adviser, Julia Bohannon, have been named to the 2024 cohort of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Gilliam Fellows Program in recognition of “their outstanding research and commitments to advancing equity and inclusion in science.” The other Tennessee fellow, Déja Grant, is a graduate student in Cancer Biology at Meharry Medical College who is working in the lab of her adviser, Rachelle Johnson, associate professor of Medicine at VUMC and program director/director of Graduate Studies for Cancer Biology at Vanderbilt University. Read More

Jeffrey Spraggins, a leading scientist in imaging mass spectrometry, has been named director of the Mass Spectrometry Research Center. The MSRC is a highly collaborative research entity incorporating a wide range of technologies and serving hundreds of users, including partnering with pharmaceutical companies on drug development research. Read More

The Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Basic Sciences is soliciting 2024 applications for research awards from the Stanley Cohen Innovation Fund. The Cohen fund supports high-risk, ground-breaking research with the potential to open new fields of scientific inquiry and biomedical impact. Read More

A drug discovery project to mitigate cardiovascular inflammation headed by Sean Davies and Amanda Doran receives funding injection from the School of Medicine Basic Sciences and the Office of the Vice Provost for Research and Innovation.  Read More

Researchers from the School of Medicine Basic Sciences recently developed an analytical tool called EV Fingerprinting that could lead to the use of “liquid biopsies” as a substitute for traditional biopsies for certain patients or diseases. Read More

Through the ASPIRE on the Road program, the Office of Biomedical Research Education and Training office took 12 biomedical trainees from Vanderbilt University to explore Boston’s small and large biotech companies. Read More