Vanderbilt Basic Sciences

Seven Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center faculty members have been elected 2021 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers. Among those elected is Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Cybele Raver,… Read More

Researchers from the labs of Hassane Mchaourab and Richard O’Brien, both professors of molecular physiology and biophysics, have successfully isolated active glucose-6-phosphatase (G6Pase) and characterized its biophysical and biochemical properties. G6Pase dysfunction is a primary contributor to metabolic diseases, including diabetes, and labs have been trying for years to isolate… Read More

The history of hermeneutics started with Aristotle—parts comprise the whole. To understand the whole, we need to understand the parts. And to understand the parts, we need to understand them in the context of the whole. Carlos F. Lopez, associate professor of biochemistry, described this concept and its connection to… Read More

Patients that sustain severe trauma are at high risk of mortality that comes in waves and may occur days to weeks after injury. Not only are patients at risk for dying at the time of injury, but a second wave of death occurs hours after the injury, from bleeding, and… Read More

Lars Plate, assistant professor of chemistry and biological sciences, is on a team that won $55,000 from Scialog’s initiative, Chemical Machinery of the Cell. The award—one of 24 granted to 21 researchers in the U.S. and Canada—will enable… Read More

Researchers at Vanderbilt University and the University of Arizona have revealed more of the inner-workings of a two-stage “molecular motor” in the cell membrane that enables bacteria to become resistant to drugs. Their findings, which were reported recently in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, will aid the search for inhibitors… Read More

by Tom Wilemon A team of Vanderbilt researchers has revealed some of the mechanisms by which polyps develop into colorectal cancer, setting the framework for improved surveillance for the cancer utilizing precision medicine. Their study, published Dec. 14 in Cell, describes findings from a single-cell transcriptomic and imaging atlas… Read More

By Olivia Trani This article was originally published on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory website and was adapted with permission for publication at Vanderbilt University. Water plays several important roles within the human body, even affecting the DNA in our cells. The entire surface of a DNA… Read More

Six current faculty members at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have made this year’s list of scientists whose papers have been cited most frequently by other researchers. They are among 6,600 researchers around the world identified by the global analytics firm Clarivate whose publications rank in the top 1% by… Read More

Kristopher Burkewitz, assistant professor of cell and developmental biology, has been awarded  $100,000 from the American Federation for Aging Research and the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research to research the biological aging process. Burkewitz was one of 10… Read More