Biochemistry News Archive
2018 News
We are delighted to announce that Dr. Breann Brown, MIT (Tania Baker Laboratory) has accepted our offer of Assistant Professor of Biochemistry. Special thanks to all those that participated in the process. Your assistance is crucial and played a major role in the decision process. Breann anticipates arriving to campus sometime around Dec 2018 or Jan 2019. Please do not hesitate to reach out to Dr. Brown to congratulate her and to offer assistance as she makes the transition to Vanderbilt and Nashville.
The National Cancer Institute has awarded Vanderbilt University a five-year $8.1 million grant to serve as a Cancer Systems Biology Consortium research center. Vito Quaranta will serve as the new center's director.
Congratulations to our faculty for securing TIPs Funding!
Nominations are open until June 30, 2018 for the Frank Chytil Travel Award and Armstrong Mentoring Award.
Hearty congratulations to Professor Tina Iverson on her new title, Professor of Pharmacology!
Boehringer Ingelheim and Vanderbilt University on March 14 announced the expansion of their successful existing collaboration to develop novel anti-cancer compounds made in the Steve Fesik Lab.
We are proud of our finance team staff member, Jennifer Bennett, as a nominee for the 2018 Athena Award, honoring socially-involved, dynamic women in Nashville business. Read her bio here (page 20). See video. Download photos: 1, 2, 3
The York Lab is in the news for their recent PNAS article!
Congratulations to our Secondary Faculty Member, Craig Lindsley, for being named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and new Chair-elect of the AAAS Pharmaceutical Sciences section.
2017 News
Cohen Lecture
The Biochemistry Department welcomed Dr. Erin O’Shea to present The Stanley Cohen Lecture, as part of the Frontiers in Biochemistry Seminar Series on December 1, 2017. Professor O’Shea hails from Harvard and is the President of the Howard Hughes Medical Investigator program. Thank you to all who attended to hear our great speaker and to honor our esteemed Emeritus Faculty Member, Dr. Cohen. The lecture hall audience was at full capacity! View Dr. York's introduction.
Michael Goodman of the Richard Armstrong/Larry Marnett Labs in Biochemistry is the recipient of the 2017 Christopher C. Harris Travel Award for Graduate Students. Sponsored by the Eicosanoid Research Foundation, the award was presented at a conference in Mexico on Bioactive Lipids in Cancer, Inflammation and Related Diseases. Way to go!
Congratulations to Bill Martin for completing his Ph.D. He has secured a three-year PostDoctoral EIPOD Fellowship at The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) to conduct research under Matthias Hentze and Marco Marcia in Heidelberg and Grenoble. Bill has been a member of the Reiter and Egli labs here.
Matthew Thompson's article, "Structural Dynamics of 15-Lipoxygenase-2 via Hydrogen-Deuterium Exchange., Biochemistry, 2017 (DOI: 10.3410/f.728649543.793536525)", has been recommended in F1000Prime as being of special significance in its field. Matt is a former member of Richard Armstrong's lab and a postdoc under Walter Chazin.
Congrats to our newest faculty member, Carlos F. Lopez, for being named as Vanderbilt’s liaison to Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Read more
Congratulations to Billy Hudson for receiving the 2018 Distinguished Investigator Prize by the International Society for Matrix Biology in recognition of seminal basic science and medical discoveries by Hudson and his colleagues. His work focuses on collagen IV, an extracellular matrix protein.
Enabling Innovation Initiative (eI2): This new program is spearheaded by Rob Carnahan, our own Chuck Sanders, and Alan Bentley to promote a culture of innovation and the dissemination of new knowledge and discoveries through entrepreneurial pathways.
Congratulations to our newest AAAS fellows: Drs. Dave Cortez and D. Borden Lacy!
Michael Goodman of the Marnett Lab in Biochemistry is the recipient of the 2017 Christopher C. Harris Travel Award for Graduate Students. Sponsored by the Eicosanoid Research Foundation, the award was presented at a conference in Mexico on Bioactive Lipids in Cancer, Inflammation and Related Diseases. Way to go!
Congratulations to D. Borden Lacy, newly named to the Edward and Nancy Fody Chair in Pathology. We are proud of our faculty and their accomplishments!
Steven Damo was highlighted by NPR/WPLN in a story on the science program at Fisk and the legacy of educators. Damo is a VU Adjunct Biochemistry Member at Fisk University who works closely with Walter Chazin.
Kudos to Romell Gletten — 2017 Levi Watkins Jr. Student Award recipient! Awarded annually to a student associated with VUSM who has made outstanding contributions to the institution by fostering a more diverse environment that is enriching, encouraging and embracing of all VUSM students, faculty and administration.
A brand new publication out of the Ascano Lab can be found in Nature Communications.
Craig Lindsley (Pharmacology) has been awarded the 2018 Smissman Lectureship by the University of Kansas for outstanding contributions to the fields of medicinal chemistry and molecular pharmacology.
Matthew Thompson's article, "Structural Dynamics of 15-Lipoxygenase-2 via Hydrogen-Deuterium Exchange., Biochemistry, 2017 (DOI: 10.3410/f.728649543.793536525)", has been recommended in F1000Prime as being of special significance in its field. Matt is a former member of Richard Armstrong's lab and a postdoc under Walter Chazin.
Congrats to our newest faculty member, Carlos F. Lopez, for being named as Vanderbilt’s liaison to Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Read more
David Cortez and colleagues describe in a paper published by the journal Molecular Cell how RADX regulates the activity of RAD51 in a way that promotes genome stability and modulates drug sensitivity. Read more
H. Alex Brown, the Bixler-Johnson-Mayes Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, succumbed to cancer Tuesday, July 25, at his home. He was 56. Dr. Brown was a leader in the field of lipidomics. A memorial service for Dr. Brown will be on Friday, July 28 at 4:00pm at Saint Andrew Lutheran Church, 908 Murfreesboro Road, Franklin, TN. Visitation will be at 3:00 pm. Read more
Congratulations and Bon Voyage to the 2017 winners of the Frank Chytil Memorial Travel Award: Romell Gletten (Schey Lab) and Matthew Albertolle (Guengerich Lab). Romell will do some research in New Zealand and attend a conference in Hawaii; Matt will attend a conference in Germany. We thank the Chytil Family for their gracious support.
TIPs Funding! A Reinvestment in Cryo-Electron Microscopy at Vanderbilt – VRA School of Medicine and College of Arts and Science Read more
Congratulations to Michael Goodman, selected by committee as the inaugural recipient of the Armstrong-Morgenstern Travel Award. This annual award is presented in conjunction with the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, where Dr. Armstrong served as an adjunct faculty member. Winners will be chosen from Vanderbilt or the Karolinska on alternate years and will have the opportunity of doing a few weeks of research abroad in a host lab within their field of interest. Thanks to the Armstrong Family for supporting funds, in tribute to Richard’s passion for research, scholarship and collaboration.
Congratulations to the Cortez Lab for "RADX promotes genome stability and modulates chemosensitivity by regulating RAD51 at replication forks," accepted for publication by Molecular Cell.
Kudos to Neil Osheroff, who was honored by the Association of Biochemistry Educators with their 2017 Distinguished Service Award! This award represents appreciation for an individual who has demonstrated either a profound, sustained, or leadership contribution to improving the postdoctoral experience.
Congrats to the Guengerich Lab for a JBC “Editor’s Pick” paper – top 2% of manuscripts in significance and overall importance of 6,600 published by the journal each year.
Richard Caprioli is featured in the cover story of Chemical & Engineering News.The article outlines how imaging mass spectrometry (IMS), pioneered in the Caprioli laboratory, has now been broadly adopted by the pharmaceutical industry. Read more
Congratulations to Kamakoti “Kami” Prakash Bhat (Cortez Lab) and Tim Shaver (Pietenpol Lab) for being named the 2017 VICC Graduate Students of the Year, and Elwood Mullins (Eichman Lab) was named the VICC Postdoctoral Fellow of the Year! Kami is also the first Vanderbilt student to win an F99/K00 predoctoral-to-postdoctoral fellow transition award from the NCI.
Congratulations to our new Ph.D. Graduates! The 2017 Graduate School Commencement program listed these ceremony participants in Biochemistry: Rachel Erin Ashley, Akosua Agyeman Badu-Nkansah, & Jeanne Marie Camarillo. We also had Mary Keithly as a Chemistry Ph.D. graduate.
Healthy News! we had several Biochemistry members participate in the Nashville “Rock n Roll” half/full marathon! We had reported sightings on Dave Cortez, Bruce Carter, Tina Iverson, Grad Student Michael Goodman, Alex Trevisan, and Grad Student Bill Martin (who came in a “scorching” 2nd place in the half marathon!). Way to #GoForTheGold!
Fourth year graduate student Lorena Infante Lara (Neil Osheroff lab) was named a Spanish Language Fellow in the AAAS Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellows Program. This program assigns fellows to media sites throughout the U.S. during the summer, where they work to research, write, and report science to the general public. Lorena will be communicating with primarily Latino audiences as she writes articles for Univisión Salud (Health) in Miami, FL, from June through August 2017.
The Carl Brändén Award, sponsored by Rigaku Corporation, honors an outstanding protein scientist who has also made exceptional contributions in the areas of education and/or service to the field. The 2017 recipient of this award is Dr. Billy Hudson (Vanderbilt University). Dr. Hudson has worked tirelessly to develop the Aspirnaut K-20 STEM Pipeline for Diversity Program that provides internships to an untapped pool of talented high-school students to encourage them to work in the STEM fields and go on to college. Hudson's outstanding research accomplishments include seminal discoveries about the structure and chemistry of collagen IV scaffolds in extracellular basement membranes and have led to a potential treatment of diabetic kidney disease.
Jennifer Pietenpol has added another happy accolade to her impressive resume: Chief Scientific Advisor (CSA) for the nonprofit breast cancer organization, Susan G. Komen. We are proud of our faculty member. Read more
Congratulations to Borden Lacy, newly appointed as the Deputy Director of the Center for Structural Biology.
2017 Student Retreat award recipients announced!
Kudos to new faculty member, Yi Ren, whose paper, "Structural and biochemical analyses of the DEAD-box ATPase Sub2 in association with THO or Yra1," was recently published in eLife!
It is a pleasure to announce that Dean of Vanderbilt Basic Sciences, Larry Marnett, announced the appointment of Chuck Sanders to the leadership team of the VU Basic Sciences of the School of Medicine effective January 1, 2017. Read more
Congratulations to Ray Blind for winning the Journal of Biological Chemistry Herb Tabor Young Investigator Award at the 2016 Phospholipid Signaling in Cancer, Neurodegeneration and Cardiovascular Disease Conference recently in Colorado. The news appeared in ASBMB Today, November 2016 issue.
Congratulations to Tina Iverson for being named to the inaugural Vanderbilt University Research Council, which will identify opportunities for significant advancements and progress in our research enterprise, advance discovery, and facilitate research collaborations between VU and VUMC.
Kudos to Dr. Kevin Schey for being named a Fellow of ARVO (Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology!
Kudos to new faculty member, Yi Ren, whose paper, "Structural and biochemical analyses of the DEAD-box ATPase Sub2 in association with THO or Yra1," was recently published in eLife!
2016 News
December 30, 2016: It is a pleasure to announce that Dean of Vanderbilt Basic Sciences, Larry Marnett, announced the appointment of Chuck Sanders to the leadership team of the VU Basic Sciences of the School of Medicine effective January 1, 2017. Read more.
December 1, 2016: Congratulations to Ray Blind for winning the Journal of Biological Chemistry Herb Tabor Young Investigator Award at the 2016 Phospholipid Signaling in Cancer, Neurodegeneration and Cardiovascular Disease Conference recently in Colorado. The news appeared in ASBMB Today, November 2016 issue.
November 7, 2016: Congratulations to Tina Iverson for being named to the inaugural Vanderbilt University Research Council, which will identify opportunities for significant advancements and progress in our research enterprise, advance discovery, and facilitate research collaborations between VU and VUMC.
November 4, 2016: Kudos to Dr. Kevin Schey for being named a Fellow of ARVO (Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology!
October 31, 2016: New faculty member, Yi Ren (Rockefeller University) joins the Department of Biochemistry on December 1st! Her office location will be 673d Light Hall. She will share lab space for now with Drs. York and Olivares in 610 RRB.
September 13, 2016: Drs. Pietenpol and Hiebert made headlines in the VUMC Reporter. Read about the Blue Ribbon Panel’s recommendations here.
August 26, 2016: Congratulations to our Faculty Member, Rich Breyer, for 25 years of service to Vanderbilt, as announced by Chancellor Zeppos at the August 25 Fall Faculty Assembly.
August 24, 2016: Welcome to our newest faculty member, Dr. Adrian Olivares, whose start date is September 12, 2016. His office is 610 RRB. Drop in, and say hello. Thank you to our faculty recruitment committee for selecting such strong candidates!
August 11, 2016: Richard Caprioli announces a major NIH renewal grant to support projects aimed at visualizing, at the molecular level, retinal disease, ovarian cancer, the impact of diabetes on the kidney and brain, and host-pathogen interactions in infectious diseases. Read more.
August 9, 2016: Neil Osheroff, Ph.D., has been named director of the Academy for Excellence in Education. He succeeds Lillian Nanney, Ph.D., who served as director since the Academy’s inception in 2007. Read more.
July 8, 2016: Alex Brown has been named as the new Director of the VICB. Congratulations to our esteemed secondary faculty member. Michelle Armstrong will be Manager of the VICB. The VICB office will remain located on the 8th floor of Preston Research Building.
July 6, 2016: Welcome to our newest faculty member, Dr. James Dewar, whose start date was July 1, 2016. His office is located at 625e LH. Thank you to our faculty recruitment committee for selecting such strong candidates!
June 20, 2016: Fantastic News! President Obama names Scott Hiebert one of six appointees to the National Cancer Advisory Board. Read more.
June 9, 2016: Congratulations Lauren Parker Jackson, named one of 22 "exceptional early-career scientists" named Pew Scholars by The Pew Charitable Trust!
May 27, 2016: Congratulations to Kevin Schey on securing TIPs funding for “establishment of a world-class metabolomics service.” Of 61 pre-proposals, 35 submissions were invited and only 14 were funded. It was a very competitive pool!
May 18, 2016: Kevin K. Kumar, MD, PhD, is the 2016 winner of the John G. Coniglio Prize in Biochemistry. The lab of Dr. Bowman and the Department of Biochemistry congratulates Kevin and wishes him much success as he continues his career at Stanford.
May 17, 2016: Congratulations to our new Biochemistry Student Association officers Lorena Infante Lara (President), Rachel Ashley (Vice President), and Monica Bomber (Secretary).
May 9, 2016: Congratulations to Brandt Eichman for reaching full tenure as a Professor!
May 5, 2016: Drs. Fesik, Osheroff, Pietenpol and Sanders all received well-deserved accolades at the Spring Faculty Meeting on May 4, 2016. We are proud of our great faculty! Details regarding each respective award may be found here.
May 4, 2016: Stanley Cohen, our Nobel-prize winning Professor Emeritus, has been named to the Tennessee Health Care Hall of Fame by Belmont University and the McWhorter Society. This accolade recognizes men and women who have made significant and lasting contributions to the health and health care industry. Winners exemplify high ethical and professional character as outstanding community role models. Read more here.
May 2, 2016: Congratulations to Bill Martin of the Reiter Lab for placing SECOND in the Rock ’n’ Roll Nashville half-marathon on April 30, 2016. Way to set the pace (5:30)!
April 28, 2016: Lisa Poole of the Cortez Lab was named as Vanderbilt Prize Scholar. This very prestigious award gives Lisa direct mentorship by Vanderbilt Prize Lecturer Dr. Huda Zoghbi (a National Academy of Sciences member and accomplished scientist). We are proud of our outgoing BSA president. Read more.
April 14, 2016: Jennifer Pietenpol has been named Executive Vice President for Research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). Her appointment is effective May 1. Read more.
April 13, 2016: Susan Wente announced today that Larry Marnett will be named dean of basic sciences in the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine at the time of the legal separation of the university and Medical Center. Read more.
March 17, 2016: Congratulations to Lisa Poole (Cortez Lab), the 2016 Leon W. Cunningham Award for Excellence in Biochemistry recipient! Read more.
March 16, 2016: Congratulations to Clayton Marshall (Pietenpol Lab) for making the Cell Reports cover with his submission, "p73 Is Required for Multiciliogenesis and Regulates the Foxj1-Associated Gene Network." Read more here.
February 15, 2016: Congratulations to Jennifer Pietenpol for winning the 2016 TJ Martell Award for Medical Research Advancement. The TJ Martell Foundation supports leukemia, cancer & AIDS research and has close ties to the music industry.
February 11, 2016: Neil Osheroff's research reveals slight chemical change may improve TB treatments. View article.
February 2, 2016: Read about Nobelist Peter Agre¹s Flexner Discovery Lecture in the VUMC Reporter, written by our very own BSA VP L. Infante!
January 14, 2016: Congratulations to Iverson/Gurevich lab member, Qiuyan Chen, for winning the 2016 Karpay Award! Seminar and celebration are slated for 1/19/16 starting at 12:15 pm in 1220 MRB III.
January 11, 2016: The Labs of Drs. Guengerich and Egli have a new paper out in JBC. Postdoc Yan Su is the first author. View article.
2015 News
December 14, 2015: 1st place in the Rocket City Marathon, with a time of 2:28:48, goes to our super fast Bill Martin. Congratulations! Bill is a 4th year Grad Student in the Reiter Lab.
November 20, 2015: Brandt Eichman, a secondary faculty member of our Department, has a publication in the November 12, 2015, issue of Nature. Way to go! View Nature article. Read VICB synopsis. See Reporter article.
November 18, 2015: Congrats to the Cortez and York Labs for recent publications in PNAS. Check them out at pnas.org.
November 17, 2015: We welcome Aaron Bowman as a secondary faculty member in the Biochemistry Department and offer congratulations to Steve Fesik for being named as a secondary faculty member in the Chemistry Department. It's great to see Vanderbilt working together.
November 12, 2015: A new Cell paper co-authored by Fred Guengerich identifies enzyme "fish use to turn their eyes into night-vision googles." View article.
October 6, 2015: Two Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center investigators, Jennifer Pietenpol, Ph.D., B.F. Byrd Jr. Professor of Oncology and director of VICC, and Valerie Jansen, M.D., Ph.D., medical oncology fellow, have received new cancer research grants awarded by Susan G. Komen, the world's largest nonprofit funder of breast cancer research. View article.
September 25, 2015: Congratulations to the Biochemistry Graduate Student Association, now a registered student organization at Vanderbilt University.
September 9, 2015: Congratulations to Walter Chazin for the prestige of being named a 2016 Fellow of the Biophysical Society, with recognition of his pioneering NMR work and other biophysical techniques related to structural dynamics of proteins regarding biological functions. Great news!
August 25, 2015: There will be a Biochemistry Open House for the Phase 1 Renovations of the Light Hall 6th Floor on September 28, 2015. The event will be from 4:00-5:30 pm in 618 Light Hall. See flyer.
August 17, 2015: Tim Shaver has been named as the 2015 Chytil Travel Award recipient. The award is granted to an MSTP or Ph.D. Student to help cover the cost of expenses for traveling to make a domestic or international presentation. A three-member committee of faculty members selects the winning recipient.
August 6, 2015: Congratulations Chuck Sanders on being named interim Editor of the American Chemical Society journal Biochemistry. Read more.
July 16, 2015: Vanderbilt Research News posted a story about Assistant Professor Emily Hodges. How did she make her way to Vanderbilt? Find out here.
July 15, 2015: Congratulations to Fred Guengerich for his new role as interim Editor-in-Chief of the ASBMB Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC). See more here.
July 8, 2015: Congratulations to Dr. Kate Mittendorf for successfully defending her Ph.D. Thesis. The Sanders Lab and Vanderbilt Biochemistry community all wish her the best of success as she moves forward with her postdoctoral position in the lab of Dr. Tom Rapaport at Harvard University this September.
July 6, 2015: Do you want to know why BRCA genes resist cancer treatment? Walter Chazin's lab has been in the news with exciting collaborative discovery science. Read more here and in the July 2 issue of Molecular Cell.
June 22, 2015: The 2015 Leon W. Cunningham Award winner has been revealed. Congratulations to Catherine Deatherage for her commendation! Catherine is a graduate student in the Sanders Lab. Read Reporter article.
June 19, 2015: Sad news: Faculty Member, Dr. Richard Armstrong, passed away on 6/18/15 after a sudden illness. Click here for more info about him and the VU memorial service. See obituary here. Click here for "Giving to Armstrong Fund" instructions.
June 19, 2015: The great work of the Fesik Lab is highlighted on the ACS Chemical Research in Toxicology webpage. Click HERE for a PDF of Abigail Shudofsky's featured piece.
June 5, 2015: Congratulations to BCHM Grad Student, Mitch LaFrance, for first-authorship of a paper appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; read the informative VU Reporter write-up here. Mitch is in the Lacy Lab.
June 4, 2015: Drs. Borden Lacy and Richard Caprioli were honored as winners at the 2015 Faculty Awards event on May 19. We are proud to recognize the strength of our faculty. Click here for photos from the event.
May 28, 2015: Dr. Conrad Wagner, Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry, was honored at a celebration of his 54 years of service at a dinner on May 27, 2015. See photos.
May 8, 2015: Bon Voyage and a hearty congratulations to Dr. Olivia Rossanese who has accepted a position as Head of Biology in the Cancer Research UK, Cancer Therapeutics Unit, at the Institute of Cancer Research in London. May 15 is her last day in the Fesik Lab as a Research Assistant Professor in Biochemistry. We wish her well.
May 8, 2015: Conrad Wagner has officially been named as a Professor of Biochemistry Emeritus. Congratulations on the big news! Read his brief bio and info about the conferring ceremony here.
May 8, 2015: Per U.S. News & World Report, Vanderbilt scored it’s best position ever in the latest ranking of national universities. Besides being recognized for providing a “best value” in undergraduate education, the VU School of Medicine moved up to rank #14 in the nation. Read more here.
May 8, 2015: Good news! According to the NIH, the VU School of Medicine ranked ninth in the nation’s medical schools for total grant support provided. This is a key indicator of our institution’s overall strength in biomedical research. Keep up the good work!
May 8, 2015: The new Engineering and Science Building, adjacent to Olin Hall, is expected to be completed next summer. At 230,000 square feet, the interdisciplinary space will house faculty and students from Engineering, Arts & Science, and our School of Medicine. Info can be found here.
And, webcam construction progress can be viewed online here.
April 28, 2015: A big congratulations to Adjunct Faculty Member Rafael Radi for being named National Academy of Sciences Foreign Associate – a huge accomplishment and distinctive honor! Rafa works with the Marnett Lab. Online announcement.
April 27, 2015: David Ong, Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry, dies. Read obituary and Reporter article.
April 20, 2015: Steve Fesik is prominently featured in this April 2015 Nature article, "Cancer: The Ras renaissance"
March 26, 2015: Congratulations to Dr. Fesik's Lab for being highlighted on the homepage of Molecular Cell for their collaborative work with Dr. Tansey's group. Read more here and here.
March 16, 2015: Oscar Touster, professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, emeritus, dies.
March 31, 2015: Congratulations to Dr. Fesik's Lab for being highlighted on the homepage of Molecular Cell for their collaborative work with Dr. Tansey's group. Read more here and here.
March 17, 2015: Congrats to Dr. Brian Bachmann for making the news regarding his drug-discovery science and mentorship of a promising young scientist, Alex Jolly. Read more here.
March 1, 2015: A big congratulations to Dr. Chuck Sanders for his approved BrightFocus Foundation funding to support Alzheimer's research on "TREM2 and Alzheimer's Disease." BrightFocus is a non-profit organization, advancing early-stage, investigator-initiated research for brain and eye health.
February 20, 2015: Congratulations to our own Jen Smith, recognized by the Nashville Chamber of Commerce for contributing towards Nashville's image as one of the nation's friendliest cities! View citation.
February 12, 2015: Congratulations to Dr. D. Borden Lacy for being named one of the Inaugural Chancellor Faculty Fellows. Across campus, only 15 faculty members were chosen. We are proud of your status as a leader and scientific innovator. Read more here.
January 22, 2015: Great news! In 2015, VUMC ranked among the nation's top 10 in NIH funding for comparable peer institutions. We had six clinical departments and four basic science research departments top this elite list. Both Biochemistry and Molecular Physiology & Biophysics continue to be ranked first among peers. Cell and Developmental Biology is ranked fourth while Pharmacology is ranked fifth. Read more here.
January 16, 2015: Congratulations to the Fesik Lab for successfully establishing a multi-year research alliance with Boehringer Ingelheim in Germany. The focus of this drug-discovery collaboration will be small molecule inhibitors of Ras, a protein targeted in cancer treatment. Read more here.
January 7, 2015: Congratulations to Dr. Fesik for winning a research investigator award from The Lustgarten Foundation. The grant will support three years of research on the discovery of small molecules targeting Ras/SOS complex for the treatment of pancreatic cancer! Great news for a great cause!
2014 News
December 2, 2014: Dr. Eric Dawson, Research Assistant Professor in Biochemistry, passed away on Dec. 1. See more info here. Read Eric's bio.
November 16, 2014: Lisa Poole Travel Award Recipient
Congratulations to Lisa Poole on receiving the 2014 Frank Chytil Travel Award!
November 5, 2014: Liebler to Participate in Live Web Discussion on Biomarker Research
The next edition of a series of live discussions from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology called “ASBMB Journal Club” will feature a discussion on biomarker research with three experts, one of whom is Daniel Liebler, Ph.D., professor of Biochemistry. The event will be Wednesday, Nov. 12, at 1 p.m. In order to watch and participate in the discussion, go to the following link on Nov. 12 at 1 p.m.: http://bit.ly/1xldRQB
November 3, 2014: Congratulations to our faculty members who have been selected to participate in Chancellor Zeppos’ transinstitutional program initiative.
Larry Marnett is co-chair of the TIPs Review Council and both Sanders and Iverson were named to TIPs Review Panels to allocate funding of collaborations as appropriate. Per My VU: Trans-institutional programs, or TIPs, are cross-college initiatives involving partnerships that interweave diverse perspectives, features, methods and information to foster creativity in both discovery and learning. We thank you for your time commitment and for representing our Department. We hope that all of our faculty will pursue collaboration through this funding opportunity.
October 3, 2014: Kate Mittendorf Wins Karpay Award
Congratulations to Kate Mittendorf for being named the 2015 recipient of The Anne Karpay Award in Structural Biology. "I am honored and humbled to have been selected as the recipient of the Karpay Award," Kate said.
September 25, 2014: ACS Editor's Choice: Congratulations to the Guengerich Lab for having a manuscript published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society which will be featured as the ACS Editor's Choice. Selected on recommendations by journal Editors, the manuscript will be immediately available via open access. Read "Mechanism of the Third Oxidative Step in the Conversion of Androgens to Estrogens by Cytochrome P450 19A1 Steroid Aromatase"
September 22, 2014: Banfic and York Have a NewFelPro Project to Study Cellular Signaling and Cell Cycle View Abstract
September 3, 2014: Osheroff's Editorial Featured in ASBMB Today
A large number of medical schools have revamped their preclerkship curricula over the past decade, and many are in the process of doing so now. It is a trend that is being driven at the national level. Commonly, new curricula are marked by a move from discipline-based to interdisciplinary courses, by decreased time devoted to the foundational sciences, by the devaluation of lectures and other traditional teaching methodologies, and by the inclusion of small-group sessions and other types of learner-centered teaching.
Read More
August 28, 2014: Ascano Research Is Highlighted
If we knew better the cell’s innate immune system and how it responds more generally to “cellular stress,” we might be able to improve treatment and prevention of viral infections, and we also might discover new treatments for neurological disorders, cancer and other diseases. That’s the goal of Manuel Ascano, Ph.D., recruited this summer from New York’s Rockefeller University to his first faculty position at Vanderbilt. His aim — to advance understanding of post-transcriptional gene regulation, how proteins interacting with RNA and DNA enable cells to rapidly adjust to changes in their environment.
Read More
July 25, 2014: Liebler Team Makes Colon Cancer Discovery
Congratulations to our faculty members Dan Liebler, David Tabb, Robbert Slebos, and the Ayers Institute lab for a co-authored July 2014 paper in Nature introducing "proteogenomic" characterization of human cancer. Sure to be high-impact in citations, this collaborative work across numerous educational institutions was led by Vanderbilt researchers. Using mass spectrometry to gather proteomic data and comparing it against existing genomic data provided novel discovery of proteomic subtypes. According to Dr. Liebler, this enables protein-based diagnostics, potentially identifying which cancers might best respond to aggressive treatments, like chemotherapy.
Read More See Nature Article
June 17, 2014: Hudson Makes Important Bromine Discovery
In a recent paper published in the journal Cell, Vanderbilt University researchers, Billy Hudson et al, establish for the first time that bromine is the 28th element essential for tissue development in all animals, from primitive sea creatures to humans. Read More
June 10, 2014: Liebler Featured in Momentum Magazine
Our very own genetic explorer, Dr. Dan Liebler, was highlighted in the Vanderbilt Cancer Center's Momentum magazine. Read More
June 2, 2014: Caprioli Recipient of 2014 ASMS Award
We are very proud of our faculty member, Dr. Richard Caprioli, for being named this year's winner of the Distinguished Contribution to Mass Spectrometry Award from the American Society for Mass Spectrometry. Congratulations! Read More
May 29, 2014: Marnett Named VUMC Vice Chancellor for Research
Congratulations to Lawrence J. “Larry” Marnett, recently named Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s next associate vice chancellor for Research and senior associate dean for Biomedical Sciences, effective Sept. 1. Read More
May 1, 2014: 2014 John G. Coniglio Prize
We are proud to announce the 2014 John G. Coniglio Prize for Excellence in Biochemistry recipient is Dr. Nicholas A. Smith. Read More
April 24, 2014: Super Family of Enzymes
Richard Armstrong's "super family" of enzymes research published in PLOS Biology. Read More
April 15, 2014: New DGS
There is a new Director of Graduate Studies in Biochemistry (DGS). David Cortez has retired after 8 years of wonderful service, and Chuck Sanders has stepped in, effective April 15th, 2014. We applaud our faculty for volunteering to take on this added responsibility. The DGS is a crucially important link between our graduate students and University faculty.
1986: Cohen Nobel Prize Announcement
An original news clipping announcing Dr. Stanley Cohen's Nobel Prize award has been found and posted on this site with links to two 1986 New York Times articles. Read More