Research, News & Discoveries

After serving as the department’s leader for more than 15 years, Samuel A. Santoro, MD, PhD, the Dorothy B. and Theodore R. Austin Professor and Chair of the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, will step down from his role as the department’s chair… Read More

The gut is lined by cells containing brush borders, which are composed of arrays of microvillar protrusions that help in nutrient absorption and provide a barrier against pathogens and toxins. Microbes such as E. coli can destroy microvilli with potentially life-threatening results. But how microvilli form has not been well understood. Using… Read More

More than 200 investigators from across the globe who specialize in islet biology, the study of hormone-producing cell clusters in the pancreas known as islets, recently gathered in Nashville to share knowledge and present the challenges and successes of their work during the first Islet Biology Workshop at Vanderbilt. The loss… Read More

When it comes to diet-induced obesity, your immune system is not always your friend. Adipose (fatty) tissue is infiltrated by white blood cells that have been linked to the development of inflammation, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. How this happens is complicated and under intense investigation by researchers around the… Read More

In a study published in the journal Developmental Biology, Chin Chiang, PhD, and colleagues demonstrate that depletion of Shh signaling in Bergmann glia in mice leads to underdevelopment of the cerebellum, a significant reduction in CGNP proliferation and disorganization of the Bergmann glia network itself. These findings demonstrate a previously unappreciated role… Read More

An international research team including scientists from Vanderbilt University has discovered how the diabetes drug metformin blocks glucose production by the liver. The discovery, reported Aug. 27 in the journal Nature Medicine, could lead to development of new ways to treat type 2 diabetes. “The most common drug to manage type 2 diabetes… Read More

New Target for Treatment of Schizophrenia Although today’s antipsychotic medications provide effective relief from some of the symptoms of schizophrenia, not all symptoms are improved, and most patients suffer significant drug-related side effects. In the search for better drugs, recent attention has focused on the M4muscarinic acetylcholine receptordue to… Read More

A $1 million gift to Vanderbilt University has established a new faculty chair named in honor of the late biochemist Richard Armstrong, whose groundbreaking work formed a basis for understanding the enzymatic function of antibiotic resistance. The Richard N. Armstrong, Ph.D. Chair for Innovation in Biochemistry, which will support a… Read More

Histones are proteins that regulate the unwinding of DNA in the cell nucleus and the expression of genes based on chemical modifications or “marks” that are placed on their tails. Understanding how the histone “code” regulates gene expression is important for understanding disease. Reporting in Proceedings of the National Academy of… Read More

​Methylglyoxal-Histone Adducts As the primary protein component of the nucleosome, histones play a critical role in packaging DNA and regulating chromatin dynamics. Histones contain an unusually large number of lysine and arginine residues, particularly in their N-terminal tail. These residues serve as sites of numerous enzymatically controlled post-translational… Read More