Research, News & Discoveries

Each year the School of Medicine honors faculty members for Excellence in Teaching and Outstanding Contributions to Research. This year’s presentations included Owen McGuinness, Professor, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics; Hassane Mchaourab, Professor, Departments of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, and Chemistry; David Wasserman, Professor of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics; and Roger Colbran, Professor, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics. Read More

Two Vanderbilt students were honored for their stellar scientific research during the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) Annual Scientific Retreat held May 3 at the Vanderbilt University Student Life Center. The VICC Graduate Student of the Year award was granted to Chloe Snider (Gould Lab) who presented work on the regulation… Read More

A Vanderbilt team took the next leap forward in using a little-known bacteria to stop the spread of deadly mosquito-borne viruses such as Zika and dengue. Wolbachia are bacteria that occur widely in insects and, once they do, inhibit certain pathogenic viruses the insects carry. The problem with using Wolbachia broadly to protect… Read More

It’s time to move beyond the traditional “magic bullet” approach for discovering new drugs and start leveraging the full complexity of Mother Nature, according to Vanderbilt Professor of Chemistry Brian Bachmann and Assistant Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology Jonathan Irish. The researchers have developed a new process that can rapidly and inexpensively… Read More

Elizabeth Gibson, a third year student in the Neil Osheroff Lab, has been awarded the 2017 AAPS Foundation Fellowship for her work on antibacterial-drug-resistant TB. Read more… Read More

Epidermis, the outermost layer of the skin, provides the critical protective barrier needed for terrestrial life. The process of epidermal barrier formation includes conversion of the essential fatty acid linoleate into skin-relevant oxidized lipids. Two lipoxygenase enzymes, 12R– LOX and eLOX3, initiate this conversion pathway. An inactivating mutation in either… Read More

Exploring Maturation of Pancreatic β-cells The β-cells of the pancreatic Islets of Langerhans play a major role in glucose homeostasis through their production of insulin, and they change in their ability to release insulin in response to glucose during development. Fetal and neonatal β-cells secrete more insulin basally and… Read More

An international team has uncovered the potential to beat obesity at the cellular level, characterizing for the first time a complex, little-understood receptor type that, when activated, shuts off hunger. Jens Meiler, professor of chemistry and pharmacology at Vanderbilt University, said pharmaceutical companies long have attempted to develop a small-molecule… Read More

About half of all melanomas have mutations in the BRAF gene that accelerate tumor cell growth and spread. While most patients benefit from targeted anti-BRAF therapy, resistance to treatment and tumor progression is almost inevitable. Vito Quaranta, MD, and colleagues studied the response of several BRAF-mutated melanoma cell lines to BRAF inhibitors. Reporting March 27 in the Biophysical… Read More

Kathleen Gould, Louise B. McGavock Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology in the School of Medicine, is Vanderbilt’s winner of the 2018 Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award. The awards, now in their seventh year, are an initiative of SECU, the academic arm of the Southeastern Conference, and recognize senior faculty at… Read More