June 2026 - EV Center faculty member, Kevin Schey, was among the 10 poster session honorees at this year's VICC Symposium. These 10 trainees, faculty, and staff were chosen among 106 presenters. Congratulations, Dr. Schey!
June 2026 - Dr. Sucre has been sleected for the 2026 cohort of Chancellor Faculty Fellows! This selection awards an $80,000, multi-year grant to support her work. Congratulations, Dr. Sucre!
June 2026 - Two EV Center faculty members were awarded at this month's spring faculty meeting
Borden Lacy, PhD - Kathryn M. Edwards Award for Clinical and Translational Research Impacting Disease Prevention
Jennifer Sucre, MD - Elaine Sanders-Bush Award for Mentoring Graduate and/or Medical Students in the Research Setting
Congratulations!
May 2026 - EV Center faculty member, Kevin Schey, was recently indicted to the International Mass Spectrometry Imaging Society (ISMIS) Executive Board to sere as the Secretary. Congratulations, Dr. Schey!
March 2026 - EV Center faculty member, Ege Kavalali was named an honorary fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for his “distinguished contributions to the field of neuroscience, especially key contributions to understanding the mechanisms of synaptic communication in health and disease.”
Congratulations Dr. Kavalali!
February 2026 - Dr. Borden Lacy was recently highlighted in Vanderbilt Health News for her new study that "represents a major step forward for vaccine development for C. diff, the leading cause of health care- and antibiotic-associated infection."
October 2025 - Dr. Dylan Burnette placed 10th in the 2025 Nikon Photomicrography Contest! See his submission linked below!
September 2025 - Congratulations to Dr. Coffey for his receiving of a Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE) grant renewal. This renewal marks the “ongoing funding of the GI SPORE awarded to Dr. Coffey’s team,” which dates back to its start at VICC in 2002.
September 2025 - Dr. DelGiorno was recently awarded a Research Scholar Award from the American Cancer Society. The award is set to “fund research into potential therapies against pancreatic cancer.” Congratulations, Dr. DelGiorno!
July 2025 - Dr. Marjan Rafat, among four other Vanderbilt faculty members, were awarded Seeding Success grants! These grants are given with the purpose to pursue bold new directions, catalyze high-impact research, and foster innovation across the university. Congratulations Dr. Rafat!
June 2025 - Three EV Center faculty members were awarded at this month’s spring faculty meeting.
Ege Kavalali, PhD – Sidney P. Colowick Award for Research that Serves as a Platform for Discovery in Diverse Areas
Kevin Schey, PhD – Lee E. Limbird Award for Innovation in Research Infrastructure that Facilitates Multiple Investigators
Bob Coffey, MD – John A. Oates Award for Two or More Faculty Working Collaboratively or in a Multidisciplinary Manner to Address Important BIological Processes and/or Diseases (Dr. Coffey was awarded alongside Dr. Ken Lau)
Congratulations all!
June 2025 - Following ISEV in April, EV Center Trainee, Cherie Saffold published an article recapping the conference from the lens of our EV Center members.
June 2025 - Dr. Heather Pua is presenting a seminar for Vesicle Vibe on June 18! Vesicle Vibe is a monthly virtual seminar series hosted by AAEV. Dr. Pua will be presenting a talk titled: T-cell Extracellular Vesicles: Communicating Signals in Tissue Inflammation.
To register to watch Dr. Pua’s seminar and to learn more, visit the Vesicle Vibe site!
May 2025 - Dr. Ndukaife has been selected for the 2025 cohort of Chancellor Faculty Fellows! This selection grants Dr. Ndukaife the title of Chancellor Faculty Fellow, and also a multi-year award to support his work. Congratulations, Dr. Ndukaife!
April 2025 - Dr. Samira Shojaee was awarded the Nashville Community’s 2025 Swim Across America Foundation Grant at this year’s event. This was the 4th Annual Swim Across American – Nashville Pool Swim to raise funds for the VICC. Congratulations Dr. Shojaee!
April 2025 - ISEV2025 was hosted in Vienna, Austria April 24-27 where a handful of our Vanderbilt EV Center Members attended and presented talks and posters! Dr. Alissa Weaver, was one of four invited Plenary Speakers. Her talk was titled: “Exosomes as Critical Mediators of Cell Migration”
Other EV Center Members presented posters: Katy Bunn, PhD Candidate, Pua Lab – Javier Ramirez Ricardo, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Pua Lab – Cherie Saffold, PhD Candidate, Pua Lab – Bong Hwan Sung, Research Associate Professor, Weaver Lab
Congratulations everyone!
March 2025 - Dr. Tyska was selected as 2024 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Alongside, Dr. Tyska, Dr. Monteggia (Pharmacology) was also honored. These faculty members are among “471 scientists, engineers and innovators who have been recognized for their” achievements. Congratulations, Dr. Tyska!
March 2025 - Katy Bunn, PhD Candidate in the Pua Lab has had a paper published in the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology. A big congratulations Katy!
November 2024 - AAEV 2024 was hosted this month in Houston, TX where many of our Vanderbilt EV Center community gathered! – Dr. Alissa Weaver was this year’s co-chair, alongside Dr. Valerie LeBleu – Dr. Heather Pua was invited to give a talk titled: “T cell Extracellular Vesicles Promote Eosinophil Survival Through the Cytokine Cargo IL-3.” – Dr. Renee Dawson was a Session Moderator for Session 8 “EV in vivo Modeling.”
Poster Presentations – Lizandra Jimenez, Research Instructor, Weaver Lab - Youn Jae Jung, Postdoctoral Fellow, Weaver Lab, Adnan Shafiq, Postdoctoral Fellow, Weaver Lab, Alex Blatt, PhD Candidate, Pua Lab
Congratulations everyone!
November 2024 - Congratulations to Hayden Pagendarm of the Wilson Lab for winning 3rd Place Poster Prize at VINSE Nanoday 2024! To read about the 24th Annual Nanoday and see Hayden’s poster, visit the Vanderbilt article!
November 2024 - Dr. Heather Pua was invited to speak at the University of Louisville this month for the Department of Microbiology and Immunology Seminar. Her talk was titled: “T cell Extracellular Vesicles ats Medicators of Communication in Allergic Lung Inflammation.” Great job, Dr. Pua!
October 2024 - Congratulations to Taylor Patino (Wilson Lab) for her 3rd Place Poster Award in the Undergraduate Poster Competition at the AIChe Annual Conference in San Diego, CA. Taylor was awarded 3rd Place in the Food, Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology XII Division for their poster titled: “Extracellular Vesicle Vaccine for Immune Activation.” Congratulations Taylor!
September 2024 - September 20 brought the 2024 Center for EV Research Retreat where we welcomed keynote speakers Drs. Dolores DiVizio, Honami Naora and Saumya Das!
May 2024 - Drs. Marjan Rafat and Justus Ndukaife were honored with awards at the School of Engineering End of the Year Social! Dr. Rafat received the Rising Star Research Award and Dr. Ndukaife received the Innovative Research Award. Congratulations Drs. Rafat and Ndukaife!
April 2024 - Theodore Anyika (Ndukaife Lab) was awarded the Runner Up Poster Award at this year’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Day, congratulations Theodore!
March 2024 - Please join us in congratulating Dr. Manuel Ascano and Dr. Alissa Weaver for being awarded funding from the National Science Foundation’s Molecular Foundations for Biotechnology program. This grant was awarded for their project titled, “Characterization of the Biogenesis, Uptake, and Cellular Response to the Ribonucleoprotein Cargoes of Extracellular Vesicles using EV-Clasp.”
To read more about the project, read the full article below.
March 2024 - Dr. John Wilson was inducted into the 2024 College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) in Washington, D.C. Congratulations Dr. Wilson!
December 2023 - The EV Center is proud to co-host Dr. Monica Driscoll, Rutgers University, for an Apex Lecture on January 8, 2024.
Talk Title: “Neurons Put Out the Trash: Modeling Aggregate and Organelle Transfer in a Living Nervous System.”
Join us for her talk in 1220 MRB III at 4:00 PM CT. This seminar is in-person only.
September 2023 - Join us in congratulating Jamey Young, Principal Investigator, and Co-PIs Alissa Weaver, John Wilson and Ethan Lippmann for being awarded a 4-year, $3 million Future Manufacturing Research Grant Award by The NSF for their grant titled “Enabling Technologies for Biomanufacturing Extracellular Vesicle-Based Therapeutic”. The long-term goals of this grant are to pioneer new strategies for scalable manufacturing of tissue specific EVs fand reveal fundamental insights into EV biosynthesis, RNA loading, secretion, cellular uptake, and delivery.
September 2023 - On September 8 we welcomed Drs. Jayanta Debnath, Ron Kahn and Emily Wang as keynote speakers for our Annual Center for EV Research Retreat! To learn more about this year’s retreat and view photos, visit the retreat page.
September 2023 - Congratulations to Greg Berumen, graduate student in the lab of Heather Pua, for receiving the Best Poster Award at this year’s Center for EV Research Retreat! With his poster titled “Altered Extracellular Vesicle and Particle Secretion in Fibroblasts after Radiotherapy”, Greg described data supporting a model for EVP-mediated intercellular communication via secretion of DNA-binding proteins by fibroblasts in a post-irradiation cellular environment.
The Center would like to congratulate Dr. Cynthia Reinhart-King on her recent election to the 2023 Class of Fellows for the IAMBE!
May 2023 - We would like to congratulate the following Center Members and trainees who presented talks and posters at ISEV2023!
Talk Presenters - Katy Bunn, Graduate Student, Pua Lab - Bahnisikha Barman, Research Instructor, Weaver Lab
Poster Presenters - Gregory Berumen, Graduate Student, Rafat Lab - Youn Jae Jung, Postdoctoral Researcher, Weaver Lab - Rachel Moen, Graduate Student, Young & Lippmann Labs - Justus Ndukaife, Assistant Professor, PI Ndukaife Lab - Hannah Nelson, Graduate Student, Patton Lab - Hayden Pagendarm, Graduate Student, Wilson Lab - Javier Ramirez Ricardo, Postdoctoral Researcher, Pua Lab - Cherie Saffold, Graduate Student, Pua Lab - Bong Hwan Sung, Research Associate Professor, Weaver Lab
April 2023 - Congratulations to Katy Bunn, graduate student in the lab of Heather Pua, for being awarded an ISEV2023 Young Researcher Scholarship! Katy will present her latest research at the upcoming ISEV2023 Annual Meeting, which will be held from May 17 – 21st in Seattle Washington.
November 2022 - Congratulations to Kyle Riedmann, Ph.D. candidate in the laboratory of Julie Bastarache, on his award of a F31 predoctoral fellowship for his grant titled “Cell-Free Hemoglobin Induces Endothelial Mitochondrial Oxidative Damage Causing Extracellular DNA Release.” Best of luck on your studies, Kyle!
November 2022 - At the 2022 ISEVxTech Conference in Hawaii, PhD Candidate Ariana von Lersner won a poster award for her poster titled “EV Fingerprinting: Resolving extracellular vesicle heterogeneity using multi-parametric flow cytometry.” Congratulations Ariana!
October 2022 - At the 14th International dsRNA Symposium in Banff, Alberta, Canada, PhD Candidate Sydni Caet Smith, received a “best poster” award for her poster titled “Extracellular vesicles protect two released reovirus strains during infection.”
October 2022 - This year’s Center Retreat was hosted on October 7th when we welcomed Drs. Juliane Nguyen, Aaron Noyes and Kenneth Witwer to Nashville as our keynote speakers.
September 2022 - Congratulations to Dr. Alissa Weaver and Dr. Matt Tyska for being recognized as 2022 ASCB Fellows!
July 2022 - Wenjun Wang of the Reinhart-King lab recently received an NCI Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Transition Award (F99). This award is meant to support outstanding Ph.D. candidates complete their dissertation research. Congratulations Wenjun!
July 2022 - Dr. Cynthia Reinhart-King, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering and professor of biomedical engineering, has accepted the position of Senior Associate Dean for Research.
June 2022 - Dr. John T. Wilson, Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, was recently named a Chancellor’s Faculty Fellow!
April 2022 - Congratulations to the EV Center Trainees who were all recently received NSF Graduate Research Fellowships. Great work, everyone!
Chelsea Mariano, Reinhart-King Lab
Drew Dixson, Weaver Lab
Marsalas Whitaker, Giorgio & Robinson Labs
Hayden Pagendarm, Wilson Lab
April 2022 - Lauren Woodard’s lab recently received a pilot and feasibility award to study EVs from the DRTC (Diabetes Research and Training Center) at Vanderbilt University. The title of the project is “Induced nephron progenitor-derived exosomes for diabetic nephropathy.” Congratulations to the Woodard Lab!
March 2022 - Congratulations to Samantha Schwager who recently successfully defended her Ph.D. Dissertation. We are proud of you, Samantha!
November 2021 - Congratulations to Dr. Heather Pua, Grant Nation and Cherie Saffold whose review on exRNA in the immune system was recently published in Immunol Rev.
October 2021 - Congratulations to Dr. Marjan Rafat whose review was just published in Cell Communication and Signaling.
September 2021 - Congratulations to Bob Coffey who has been awarded a two-year $2 million dollar NCI Common Fund Extracellular RNA Community Consortium 2 grant! This grant will be used to develop and utilize novel technologies to isolate extracellular vesicles and nanoparticles in colorectal cancer and glioblastoma multiforme.
September 2021 - Congratulations to Justus Ndukaife and John Wilson who each recently won a Chancellor’s Award for Research! The research award recognizes excellence in works published or presented in the last three years. Justus was also selected as a Rising Star of Light by the Nature family journal of Light Science and Applications.
September 2021 - Congratulations to Cynthia Reinhart-King who is the new president-elect of the Biomedical Engineering Society! BMES is the largest professional society for biomedical engineers, representing more than 5,000 members.
August 2021 - Very excited to launch the new Center for Extracellular Vesicle Research at Vanderbilt University.
May 2021 - Congratulations to recent graduates, Mikin Patel of Weaver Lab and Jessica Abner of Patton Lab!
May 2021 - Congratulations to Samantha Schwager who was just awarded a PEO Scholar Award from the PEO Sisterhood to support her research investigating how cancer-derived microvesicles signal to stromal fibroblasts to mediate cancer metastasis.
April 2021 - Congratulations to Greg Berumen, a student in Marjan Rafat’s lab, for receiving the NSF GRFP award!
April 2021 - Congratulations to Mikin Patel, who recently received a Family S Graduate Scholarship, awarded to deserving graduate students who are conducting basic research in the field of autism.
November 2020- Congratulations to Marjan Rafat, who recently received a Conquer Cancer Now award from the Concern Foundation!
November 2020 - Congratulations to Samantha Schwager, a student in Cynthia Reinhart-King’s lab, who has received an Iozzo Trainee Award from The American Society for Matrix Biology.
October 2020 - Congratulations to Jamey Young, Ethan Lippman, Alissa Weaver, and John Wilson, who recently received a Future Manufacturing Seed Grant from NSF for their project “Enabling Technologies for Biomanufacturing EV-Based Therapeutics.”
September 2020 - Congratulations to Ariana von Lersner from Andries Zijlstra’s lab, on receiving a National Cancer Institute fellowship.
July 2020 - Cynthia Reinhart-King has received a $1M W.M. Keck Foundation grant for her research.
June 2020 - The Extracellular Vesicles program was highlighted in Vanderbilt’s new Basic Science magazine Vestigo.
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April 2020 - The extracellular RNA group received $9M in funding, which has been highlighted by the VUMC Reporter.
December 2019 - The new EV research program has been highlighted in the December issue of the Basic Sciences Newsletter.
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October 2019 - Dr. Heather Pua has recently been awarded the NIH New Innovator Award for her work with Extracellular RNA.