Around the Medical Center
Large study finds higher burden of acute brain dysfunction for COVID-19 ICU patients
Mar. 19, 2021—COVID-19 patients admitted to intensive care in the early months of the pandemic were subject to a significantly higher burden of delirium and coma than is typically found in patients with acute respiratory failure. Choice of sedative medications and curbs on family visitation played a role in increasing acute brain dysfunction for these patients. That’s...
Medical student addresses food needs during pandemic
Mar. 19, 2021—Stephanie Hart, a third-year student in Vanderbilt University’s School of Medicine, is partnering with Cole Elementary School to help fight food insecurity in the Nashville community during the COVID-19 pandemic. When schools across the country closed in March 2020, many children did not get the meals they normally received during the school day. Hart knew...
Research Roundup
Mar. 19, 2021—Polymer protection for heart muscle Following an ischemic event that disrupts oxygen supply to the heart, such as myocardial infarction or cardiac arrest, the return of blood flow can result in additional cellular injury, known as reperfusion injury. Studies have suggested that Poloxamer 188 (P188), a polymer with hydrophobic and hydrophilic chemical properties, can stabilize cell...
Alum named chair of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology
Mar. 19, 2021—After an extensive national search Alice Coogan, MD’88, interim chair of the Department and professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology (PM&I), was named as the department’s next chair. Coogan is the seventh chair of the department and the first female chair. Coogan, who is also executive medical director of Anatomic Pathology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center,...
New bone-anchored hearing implant enhances patient’s life
Mar. 19, 2021—Although Elisabeth Mouw, 23, knew she would benefit from having a bone-anchored hearing implant, she put off getting one for several years. Aside from being concerned about the aesthetic of wearing an external hearing device, she was worried it would interfere with her ability to play sports. Mouw was born with a cholesteatoma, a cyst...
Living liver donor program performs first transplant
Mar. 19, 2021—Tammy Burnett’s life was threatened by cirrhosis of the liver and she desperately needed a transplant. She got on the waiting list at multiple centers, but feared she might die because of the limited supply of matching livers from deceased donors, which could take years to arrive, if ever. Last year, Burnett learned about the...
Price’s old laboratory recipe book proves to be invaluable
Oct. 5, 2020— Howard Price has a decades-old green notebook he keeps in his office at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and when a shortage of a critical laboratory supply nearly brought testing for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, to a halt at the Medical Center in March, the notebook’s contents quickly became invaluable. “We ran out...
Research Round-up
Oct. 5, 2020—Probing DNA damage repair Cells missing the protein HMCES are hypersensitive to DNA-damaging agents that cause a common type of DNA lesion — an “abasic” site. But the agents also generate other types of lesions associated with mutations and cell lethality, making it unclear whether HMCES responds to abasic sites in cells. David Cortez, PhD,...
Program helps children with hand, upper extremity issues
Oct. 5, 2020—Brinkley Sandvall, MD, who runs the Hand and Upper Extremity program at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, bonds quickly with her young patients — children who have acquired or congenital hand and upper extremity differences. “I feel like this is the greatest job — it’s the intersection of what I can do, what...
Listen Up: VUMC offers original podcast series
Oct. 5, 2020—Vanderbilt University Medical Center has launched Vanderbilt Health DNA: Discoveries in Action, an original podcast series exploring the issues and scientific advancements shaping health, medicine and society. The series takes the listener deep into the world of health care through conversations with more than 30 pioneers who are pushing boundaries and setting the stage for the...
Opioid prescriptions after childbirth linked to increased risk of overdose, persistent use
Oct. 5, 2020— Women who are prescribed opioids after childbirth have an increased risk of persistent opioid use or other serious opioid-related events, including overdose, in their first year postpartum, according to a study by Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers. This is true regardless of whether the woman had a vaginal delivery or a cesarean section. The...
Vanderbilt Transplant Center sets monthly record
Oct. 5, 2020—The Vanderbilt Transplant Center performed 73 transplants in May, setting a Medical Center record for the most transplants in a month. Sixteen of those were heart transplants — also a monthly record — cementing VUMC’s status as the busiest heart transplant center in the country. “In any month this would be an extraordinary achievement, but...
ROSA technology helps ease patient’s violent seizures
Mar. 12, 2020—Daniel Lookabaugh, a 20-year-old electrical engineering student who has epilepsy, has never driven a car because of violent seizures and had to put his schooling on hold last year. His seizures began about age 3. They became more frequent as he got older, then became so intense two years ago that he would dislocate his...
Multisite study focuses on opioid use during pregnancy
Mar. 12, 2020—The Vanderbilt Maternal Addiction Recovery Program is participating in a 12-site clinical trial that will compare two forms of the medication buprenorphine in treating opioid use disorder during pregnancy, and the results could have a potentially significant impact on clinical practice. The study, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, will randomize participants to...
Research Round-up
Mar. 12, 2020—Less inflammation = better healing Myocardial infarction remains a leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide, raising an urgent need for novel therapies. Acute MI provokes an inflammatory response in the heart that removes damaged tissue to promote repair and regeneration. Overactive and/or prolonged inflammation impedes healing, however, suggesting that reducing inflammation may lead to...
Shade Tree Clinic Founder Remembered
Mar. 12, 2020—In 2004 Vanderbilt medical students and classmates Katie Cox and Kristina Collins approached then-VUSM Dean, Steven Gabbe, MD, and Bonnie Miller, MD, then Associate Dean for Medical Students, with a proposal to establish a free medical student-run clinic to serve Nashville’s uninsured population. What started as a summer project resulted in their co-founding the Shade...
No such thing as a low-risk surgery for frail patients
Mar. 12, 2020—Even a minor surgery such as a laparoscopic gallbladder removal can prove to be a high-risk and even fatal procedure for frail patients, according to new research published in JAMA Surgery. A team of researchers from leading U.S. academic medical centers and VA medical centers examined the records of 432,828 patients who underwent a non-cardiac...
Study seeks to expand treatment options for rare airway disease
Sep. 9, 2019—Armed with $1.2 million in funding from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center are searching to understand the cause of a rare airway disease in hopes of developing better treatments. Idiopathic subglottic stenosis (iSGS) is an unexplained narrowing of the windpipe just below the vocal cords. The...
VISE team seeks to develop new robot to ease prostatectomies
Sep. 9, 2019— The Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering (VISE) team of Robert Webster III, PhD, Richard A. Schroeder Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Duke Herrell, MD, received a $2.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop a new surgical robot for endoscopic transurethral prostatectomy. The mechanical engineer (Webster) and urologic surgeon (Herrell)...
New technology helps pediatric patients who require frequent X-rays
Sep. 9, 2019—Chloie Jacobs, 9, prepares for a follow-up scan of her congenital scoliosis and climbs into a new X-ray imaging device at the pediatric orthopaedic clinic at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. But this isn’t just any X-ray machine. For Chloie, the cutting-edge technology, known as EOS, feels more like a teletransporter, because of its...
Master of Genetic Counseling program debuts inaugural class
Sep. 9, 2019—In August, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine welcomed its first class of students seeking a Master of Genetic Counseling (MGC) degree, one of the fastest growing health professions in the country. Vanderbilt’s program, developed and taught by genetic counselors in collaboration with the interprofessional faculty at Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center, is built...
Treatment approved for acute graft-versus-host disease
Sep. 9, 2019—The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved ruxolitinib, the first drug for patients with acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) who have an inadequate response to steroid treatment. Madan Jagasia, MBBS, MS, MMHC, chief medical officer and co-leader of the Translational Research and Interventional Oncology Program at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC), was a lead investigator...
Research Round-up
Sep. 9, 2019—Blueprint for rebuilding the heart Cell fate reprogramming — converting one cell type into another — is a potential strategy for generating cardiac cells to treat heart diseases. Although previous studies have shown that the expression of cardiogenic transcription factors directly reprograms fibroblasts (connective tissue cells) into induced cardiomyocyte-like cells (iCMs), there remains the obstacle...
Q + A: John “Nicky” Grimes
Feb. 28, 2019—John “Nicky” Grimes, PhD, is a second-year student in Vanderbilt University School of Medicine’s Medical Innovators Development Program (MIDP), a four-year PhD-to-MD training program tailored to engineers and applied scientists. The first in his family to obtain a traditional bachelor’s degree, Grimes, who holds the Glenn and Virginia Hammonds Scholarship, explains what led him to...
Young heart patient, care team bond through music
Feb. 28, 2019—Sydney Andrade-Rubio usually brings her ukulele during hospital stays and clinic visits at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. The 15-year-old likes to pass the time strumming the four-string instrument, humming tunes and sometimes playing along with her cardiologist, Frank Fish, MD. Music has been the bridge Fish used to help him connect with...
Research roundup
Feb. 28, 2019—Study suggests way to prevent rare lung disease Research by Vanderbilt scientists suggests that it may be possible to prevent or even reverse pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a rare, progressive disease characterized by narrowing of and high blood pressure in the small arteries of the lungs. A key player in PAH is the proangiogenic cell...
Brady to succeed Miller as Senior Associate Dean and EVP for Educational Affairs
Feb. 28, 2019— After more than three decades of service to Vanderbilt, Bonnie Miller, MD, MMHC, Senior Associate Dean for Health Sciences Education at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and Executive Vice-President for Educational Affairs at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has decided to retire from her leadership positions July 1. Miller will be succeeded in these roles...
Antipsychotics ineffective for treating ICU delirium: study
Feb. 28, 2019—Critically ill patients are not benefiting from antipsychotic medications that have been used to treat delirium in intensive care units (ICUs) for more than four decades, according to a study released in October 2018 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Each year, more than 7 million hospitalized patients in the United States experience delirium,...
Family’s transplant journey a study in overcoming barriers
Sep. 13, 2018— There are no words for liver transplantation in Somalian refugee Aniso Haji’s native language. As a translator meticulously selected words to describe the medical procedure that would ultimately save the life of Haji’s youngest daughter, Fatuma Abdikadir, members of the pediatric liver transplant team at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital waited anxiously. Haji spoke...
Research Round-up
Sep. 13, 2018—Restoring silenced voices A swarm of cicadas that left thousands of insect carcasses across the Vanderbilt University campus in 2011 is leading to transinstitutional research at the Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering (VISE) and Vanderbilt University Medical Center to develop a surgical planning tool to help restore speech for people with vocal fold paralysis....
Saline Use On The Decline At Vanderbilt Following Landmark Studies
Sep. 13, 2018—Saline, used in medicine for more than a century, contains high concentrations of sodium chloride, which is similar to table salt; Vanderbilt researchers found that patients do better if, instead of saline, they are given balanced fluids that closely resemble the liquid part of blood. “Our results suggest that using primarily balanced fluids should prevent...
Renovated Eskind Biomedical Library re-opened
Sep. 13, 2018—The Annette and Irwin Eskind Family Biomedical Library and Learning Center opened July 18 after a yearlong, $12.9 million renovation with infrastructure improvements and updates to support the continuing evolution of medical education. The construction project was designed to incorporate the University’s research, learning and teaching goals and includes features that complement the School of...
Q+A: Jed Kuhn, MD
Sep. 13, 2018—Jed Kuhn, MD, Kenneth D. Schermerhorn Professor of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, and Paul Rummo, MD, also a Vanderbilt orthopaedics expert, are the head team physicians for the NHL’s Nashville Predators. With help from neuropsychologist Gary Solomon, PhD, and specialists in emergency medicine, plastic surgery, ophthalmology and dentistry, they keep Nashville’s beloved hockey stars healthy and...
Study provides robust evidence of sex differences with Alzheimer’s gene
Sep. 13, 2018— The APOE gene, the strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, may play a more prominent role in disease development among women than men, according to new research from the Vanderbilt Memory and Alzheimer’s Center. The research confirmed recent studies that carrying the APOE ε4 allele has a greater association with Alzheimer’s disease among...
Dolly’s Children’s Hospital visit highlights strong ties
Feb. 28, 2018—To celebrate the release of her first children’s album, “I Believe in You,” legendary country music singer-songwriter Dolly Parton visited Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in October 2017 and performed songs from the album for patients, their families and hospital staff. Parton specifically wrote the song “Chemo Hero” to honor one of her...
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...
Study explores nicotine patch to treat mild cognitive impairment
Feb. 28, 2018—Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) is one of 29 sites participating in a national study to determine whether a daily transdermal nicotine patch will have a positive effect on attention and early memory impairment in older adults diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). Paul Newhouse, MD, director of the Center for Cognitive Medicine at VUMC,...
Symposium honors Moses’ storied cancer research career
Feb. 28, 2018—Members of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) community and others whose lives and careers have been influenced by legendary cancer investigator, educator and administrator Harold (Hal) Moses, MD’62, have endowed the Linda and Harold L. Moses, MD, Career Development Fund. The fund will support the next generation of physicians, scientists and scholars, and was...
Research Round-up
Feb. 28, 2018—Radiation and pulmonary fibrosis Radiation-induced pulmonary fibrosis — tissue scarring that can permanently impair lung function — limits the delivery of therapeutic radiation doses to non-small cell lung cancer. Michael Freeman, PhD, and colleagues are exploring the cell types and factors that contribute to the radiation-induced fibrotic response. The investigators previously showed that loss of...
Patient’s freak pancreas injury spurs rapid response
Feb. 28, 2018—Macie Glover sprinted across the gym floor at school, tripped and crashed into a wall. In a bizarre sequence of events, she hit her head and arm and scraped her knees as the force of the crash propelled her whole body arching backward into a crescent shape. “I hit the ground. I couldn’t breathe. Whenever...
Study uses child’s own immune system against type 1 diabetes
Sep. 21, 2017—Eighteen-year-old Grace Long had just been accepted at the renowned United States Naval Academy, with plans to become a nuclear engineering officer. Then, she learned she had type 1 diabetes, an immediate disqualifier for military service. Rather than allow the news to derail her, Long immediately began to investigate how she could spin her disappointment...
Q+A: Arna Banerjee, MBBS
Sep. 21, 2017—Physician-educator Arna Banerjee, MBBS, associate professor of Anesthesiology, Surgery, and Medical Education and Administration, is a national leader in medical simulation training. She is director of Vanderbilt’s Center for Experiential Learning and Assessment (CELA) and assistant dean for Simulation in Medical Education for Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. She also provides perioperative care for adult...
Vanderbilt-led Study Disputes Link Between Uterine Fibroids and Miscarriage Risk
Sep. 21, 2017—A 10-year study, led by Vanderbilt University Medical Center professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology Katherine Hartmann, M.D., Ph.D., disrupts conventional wisdom that uterine fibroids cause miscarriages. The results of study appeared June 7 in the American Journal of Epidemiology. “Women with fibroids had identical risk of miscarriage as women without fibroids when taking into account...
VUSM joins initiative to transform medical education
Sep. 21, 2017—Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM) has been chosen to be a part of the newly formed Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Institute for the Transformation of Medical Education (Kern Institute), a national initiative to transform medical education across the continuum from pre-medical school to physician practice. The National Transformation Network, a collaborative of...
Research Round-up
Sep. 21, 2017—Studies find tonsillectomies offer only modest benefits Removing tonsils modestly reduced throat infections in the short term in children with moderate obstructive sleep-disordered breathing or recurrent throat infections, according to a systematic review conducted by the Vanderbilt Evidence-based Practice Center for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Four papers derived from the larger...
How six cups of ground coffee can improve nose, throat surgery
Sep. 21, 2017—Imagine plopping six cups of coffee grounds on the heads of patients just before they are wheeled into the operating room to have nose or throat surgery. In essence, that is what a team of Vanderbilt University engineers are proposing in an effort to improve the reliability of the sophisticated “GPS” system that surgeons use...
Eskind family makes $6 million gift to keep library on leading edge of health education innovation
Mar. 1, 2017—A visionary $6 million gift to Vanderbilt University from the Eskind family will ensure that the Annette and Irwin Eskind Biomedical Library, the institution’s hub of medical information services and resources since 1994, will continue to support the next generation of scientists, physicians, students and patients. The $12.9 million renovation will provide infrastructure for the...
Q+A: Wonder Drake, M.D.
Mar. 1, 2017—Physician-scientist Wonder Drake, M.D., ‘94, associate professor of Medicine and Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, has focused her research on understanding the pathogenesis of sarcoidosis, a chronic inflammatory disease that strikes multiple organ systems in the body. She is the newly named director of the Sarcoidosis Center of Excellence. What about sarcoidosis attracted your attention as...
Complex plastic surgery restores facial expression
Mar. 1, 2017—When Kelly Davis woke up one morning in April 2016, she told her husband Anthony that she dreamed her face was moving; then she looked in the mirror and saw that it really was. “I just cried,” said the 46-year-old Morristown, Tennessee, resident. “When I bit down on my teeth, I could see movement on...
Research Round-up
Mar. 1, 2017—Reducing antidepressants’ side effects Medicines used to treat depression, called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), can increase bleeding risk and bleeding time and disrupt platelet aggregation in the gastrointestinal tract. SSRIs prevent cells from taking up the neurotransmitter serotonin that has been released from cells by blocking the serotonin transporter (SERT). It is unclear how...