Author
The Merit of Minimizing Mistakes
Mar. 27, 2024—Progress across biomedicine and health is attended by a series of well-knit statistical inferences. Statistical inference tells you whether that obscure human trait that has seized your imagination is apt to be a blind alley or a useful (and publishable) biomarker of disease risk. It estimates how many willing patients you’ll need to test your...
The Expert from Nowhere
Jan. 3, 2023—To understand a protein’s structure is to understand its function, says structural and chemical biologist Jens Meiler, PhD, distinguished research professor of Chemistry. It can take a PhD student up to five sleep-deprived years to determine the structure of a single protein, and of the 20,000 human proteins, only about 17% are considered to have...
Q + A: E. Wesley Ely, MD, MPH
Oct. 18, 2021—“Every Deep-Drawn Breath,” released Sept. 7 by Scribner, is the first book for a general readership from pulmonologist and critical care specialist E. Wesley Ely, MD, MPH, the Grant W. Liddle Professor of Medicine and founding co-director of the groundbreaking Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction and Survivorship (CIBS) Center. Q: What is “Every Deep-Drawn Breath” about,...
Alumni Profile: Airron Richardson, MD, MBA, FACEP
Mar. 12, 2020—Career inspired by early influence Airron Richardson, MD’05, MBA’05, attended the University of Michigan on an athletic scholarship, came to the School of Medicine after a stint on the U.S. wrestling team, then capped his University of Chicago residency training in emergency medicine with a sports medicine fellowship at Duke. Today, as a clinician...
The CME Transformation
Feb. 28, 2019—In November 2018 Vanderbilt University Medical Center physicians and other clinical team members gathered from specialty services that see patients who are more apt to be gravely ill — trauma, cardiology, gerontology and so on. The occasion was an intensive training session spread over three consecutive days, called Difficult Conversations with Seriously Ill Patients. In...
Q+A: Lawrence Marnett, PhD
Feb. 28, 2018—Lawrence Marnett, PhD, University Professor of Biochemistry, Chemistry and Pharmacology and Mary Geddes Stahlman Professor of Cancer Research, is Vanderbilt’s first Dean of Basic Sciences, which comprises four biomedical science departments, eight centers and 18 research cores. Marnett was named dean in April 2016. Can you please describe a formative moment from your career in...
Quick Take: Dan Roden, M.D.
Aug. 22, 2016—Dan Roden, M.D., studies the mechanisms underlying variability in response to drug therapy and is principal investigator for BioVU, Vanderbilt’s biorepository. Roden is also William Stokes Professor of Experimental Therapeutics, professor of Medicine and Pharmacology, and director of the Oates Institute for Experimental Therapeutics. What led to VUMC’s investment in personalized medicine? There’s our...