Research, News & Discoveries

Laboratory and administrative personnel at Vanderbilt University Medical Center were honored last week for research excellence during the 16th annual Research Staff Awards luncheon at the Kimpton Aertson Hotel in Nashville. Schaffer, an expert in a wide range of microscopy modalities, is an essential part of the CISR and collaborates… Read More

By Cassandra Awgulewitsch https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/basic-sciences/wp-content/uploads/sites/101/2020/02/SteinDiabetes.mp4   Researchers in the lab of Roland Stein (Molecular Physiology & Biophysics), along with collaborators at UCSF, NC State, and UPenn, have shown distinct changes in human pancreatic islet cells throughout the course of life and the progression of type 2 diabetes. They also discovered… Read More

By Sarah Glass https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/basic-sciences/wp-content/uploads/sites/101/2020/02/Coffey_Updated.mp4   3D illustration of colorectal cancer. Kateryna_Kon, stock.adobe.com. Researchers from the labs of Robert Coffey (Medicine) and Jacob Houghton (Radiology and Radiological Sciences) report in Gastroenterology the identification of two human antibodies, P1X and P2X, that can neutralize EGFR in mice. EGFR,… Read More

https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/basic-sciences/wp-content/uploads/sites/101/2020/02/Jackson_updated.2-1.mp4   This article was submitted by the senior author of the featured paper, Lauren P. Jackson. Cryo-EM image of retromer chain assembly. Courtesy of Amy K. Kendall Human cells contain a “FedEx system” to ensure that important protein and fatty lipid cargo molecules are delivered to the right… Read More

Feb. 6, 2020, 10:28 AM by Bill Snyder A research team led by scientists at Vanderbilt University Medical Center has developed an antibody mixture that in animals is highly effective in blocking infection by the Ebola virus. Reporting in the journal Immunity, these findings “could aid in the design… Read More

Feb. 6, 2020, 10:24 AM by Bill Snyder Two Vanderbilt University pharmacologists have won prestigious awards from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET). Jeffrey Conn, PhD Jeffrey Conn, PhD, founding director of the Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery, has won the society’s 2020 Julius… Read More

Feb. 6, 2020, 10:10 AM Researchers Timothy Blackwell, MD, left, Erin Plosa, MD, Roy Zent, MD, PhD, and colleagues are studying beta-1 integrin’s role in normal lung function. (photo by Susan Urmy) by Bill Snyder Beta-1 integrin, a critical component of epithelial extracellular matrix receptors, is essential for normal lung… Read More

By Alexandria Oviatt DNA repair pathways such as NER have the integral role of protecting us from potentially damaging mutations. Defects in these mechanisms can lead to diseases such as XP or cancers. (Gernot Krautberger, stock.adobe.com) A recent Nucleic Acids Research paper from the lab of Walter… Read More

By Lorena Infante Lara Stanley Cohen, Nobel laureate, posing next to a portrait of himself. Dr. Stanley Cohen, Vanderbilt University emeritus faculty and Nobel Prize winner, passed away Wednesday morning. He was 97 years old. Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1922, Cohen was the… Read More

By Amanda N. Johnson “Major depression is one of the most common mental disorders in the U.S. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, approximately 7% (17.3 million) of American adults had at least one major depressive episode in 2017.” (Tadamichi, stock.adobe.com) Existing drug treatments relieve mental illness for… Read More