Research, News & Discoveries

Nov. 5, 2019, 8:30 AM by Bill Snyder The bacterial toxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is one of the most potent virulence factors of Gram-negative bacteria that cause sepsis. Exposure to even tiny amounts can trigger a systemic — and potentially lethal — inflammatory response known as endotoxin shock. Proinflammatory SRTFs (stress-responsive… Read More

By Alexandra Fuller Model of vertebrate replication termination. Adapted with permission from Dewar et al. Nature 2018; 525:345–350. DOI: 10.1038/nature14887. You might break chicken eggs for your breakfast, but the lab of James Dewar (Biochemistry) breaks frog eggs to better understand the mechanisms cells use to terminate DNA replication. Published… Read More

By Cayetana Arnaiz Yépez Super-resolution images of two human epithelial cells. Fluorescence intensities are heatmapped to facilitate visualization; warmer colors correspond to higher levels of the cytoskeletal protein, actin. Image courtesy of Matt Tyska. Cells along our intestinal tract are responsible for absorbing nutrients and acting as a barrier to… Read More

By Natalya Ortolano Confocal laser scanning microscopy image of the dorsal cord of a young adult showing a VD motor neuron with spine-like protrusions, and a close-up of the spines. Figure reproduced and modified under a CC BY 4.0 license from eLife 2019;8:e47918. When Nobel laureate Santiago… Read More

Oct. 31, 2019, 11:00 AM by Leigh MacMillan Bacterial pathogens require nutrient metals to survive and cause disease, and hosts try to protect themselves by hiding metals away — a process called “nutritional immunity.” Bacteria have evolved multiple strategies for getting the metals they need, including the secretion of small… Read More

Oct. 31, 2019, 9:42 AM   by Bill Snyder Diabetes is the leading cause of end-stage renal disease, one of the nation’s most debilitating and expensive medical conditions. In 2016 Medicare spent $35 billion caring for more than 725,000 Americans whose kidneys had failed. Short of mandating universal diabetes treatment,… Read More

Oct. 31, 2019, 9:25 AM Jeffrey Rathmell, PhD, has been named to receive a distinguished innovator award from the Lupus Research Alliance. (photo by Susan Urmy) by Tom Wilemon Jeffrey Rathmell, PhD, director of the Vanderbilt Center for Immunobiology and Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Immunobiology, is a 2019 recipient of… Read More

By Colbie Chinowsky Drawing of two enterocytes representing Microvillus Inclusion Disease (left and center) and a healthy enterocyte with its microvilli on its apical side. Adapted with permission from Vogel, GF, Janecke, AR, Krainer, IM, Gutleben, K, Witting, B, Mitton, SG, Mansour, S, Ballauff, A, Roland, JT, Engevik, AC, Cutz,… Read More

Congratulations to Justin Marinko for being named the 2020 recipient of The Karpay Award in Structural Biology. “I am deeply honored to win the Karpay award,” Justin said. Justin joined the Sanders Lab in 2016 focusing his research on structural biology and protein folding… Read More

Oct. 24, 2019, 8:55 AM by Tom Wilemon Two Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) investigators have received financial support from Susan G. Komen for breast cancer research. Their projects were among 60 grants totaling $26 million awarded to researchers nationwide. Those initiatives are focused on improving outcomes for metastatic breast cancer,… Read More