Vanderbilt Basic

By Chuck Sanders, Vice Dean of the Vanderbilt School of Medicine Basic Sciences Everyone, including me, has strong opinions about the most prestigious scientific journals such as Cell, Science, and Nature, but we all agree we’d like our papers to be published in these “pinnacle” venues! At least in an… Read More

A new study in the journal Cell Host & Microbe brings the beneficial bacterial residents of the gut into the mix. The findings show that commensal gut microbes impact the host-pathogen competition for iron and have implications for therapeutic strategies aimed at preventing pathogens from acquiring essential nutrients. Postdoctoral fellow Yasiru… Read More

As cells grow and divide, their DNA needs to be accurately replicated and properly segregated to new cells. Errors during replication or segregation can alter the genome and promote cancer. Now, researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have identified the mechanism by which the enzyme and tumor suppressor SETD2 prevents… Read More

An international collaboration steered by David Cortez, Richard N. Armstrong, Ph.D. Chair for Innovation in Biochemistry, explored how cells tolerate DNA damage and genome instability—and they arrived at conclusions that will redirect research into DNA replication as a target for cancer and disease therapeutics. Cells continuously divide… Read More

Cells in the body communicate by sending and receiving protein and genetic information packaged in extracellular vesicles and nanoparticles, including exomeres and supermeres. This complex transport system is important not only in health, but in disorders as diverse as cancer, cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease. For example,… Read More

The Gastric Cancer Foundation has awarded a one-year $100,000 research grant to Eunyoung Choi, PhD, assistant professor of Surgery in the Section of Surgical Sciences, to support her efforts to find a way to disrupt the transformation of dysplastic stem cells into stomach cancer. The award was one of… Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has received a five-year, $5 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to study precancerous lesions and early cancers in the colon, with the goal of developing new ways to prevent colorectal cancer, the nation’s second leading cancer killer. Robert Coffey, MD, Martha Shrubsole, PhD, and Ken… Read More

Nancy Carrasco was recently named a 2023 Biophysical Society Fellow “for her broad-reaching studies of the sodium/iodide transporter including cloning and structure determination together with its roles in physiology and disease, and her impressive service to the Biophysics community.” The Biophysical Society is delighted to announce its 2023 Society Fellows. Read More