Research, News & Discoveries

Jul. 14, 2020, 8:00 AM by Leigh MacMillan NAEs are bioactive lipid molecules that appear to play roles in energy balance, inflammation, stress responses and addiction. How NAE levels are regulated and their precise contributions to biological processes remain poorly understood. To develop tools to explore NAE function,… Read More

By Sohini Roy Neuro-2a cells after treatment with STING-NP. (Wang-Bishop et al. Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, through a CC BY-NC 4.0 license) Neuroblastoma, an aggressive pediatric brain cancer with a high mortality rate, boasts a unique microenvironment that puts the brakes on infiltrating… Read More

https://cdn-dev.vanderbilt.edu/t2-main/medschool-dev/wp-content/uploads/sites/101/2020/07/Discovery_Weaver-SM-Web-1.mp4   By Sarah Glass Cells use exosomes as pathfinding tools during migration-related processes, such as embryonic development, wound healing, and cancer metastasis. © Christoph Burgstedt, stock.adobe.com Scientists once dismissed the small, membrane-bound particles packed with proteins, nucleic acids, and lipids that are expelled by cells as mere cellular… Read More

by Leigh MacMillan The Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology and Inflammation (VI4) recently moved into its new research and administrative home. The state-of-the-art facilities in Medical Center North represent the first phase of research space for VI4, which was created in 2017 as a key initiative… Read More

Jul. 9, 2020, 9:30 AM by Leigh MacMillan The proteins Sin3a and Sin3b act as scaffolds for protein complexes that regulate gene expression to control cell differentiation, survival and function. Guoqiang Gu, PhD, and colleagues have assessed the roles of Sin3a/b in the embryonic development and… Read More

Jul. 8, 2020, 1:38 PM   by Bill Snyder Scientists at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) in Phoenix, Arizona, have discovered previously unreported genetic and cellular changes that occur in the lungs of people with pulmonary fibrosis (PF). Their findings, reported Wednesday, July 8,… Read More

Stephen W. Fesik, Ph.D., Orrin H. Ingram, II Chair in Cancer Research and Professor of Biochemistry, Pharmacology, and Chemistry, is the featured speaker of this July 3, 2020 webinar (50:43) titled, “A Promising Start to Ending Coronaviruses.”… Read More

Susan R. Wente has served dual roles as biomedical scientist and interim chancellor and provost This story will run in full in the inaugural, Summer 2020 issue of Vestigo, the magazine from the School of Medicine Basic Sciences. When the first reports of an unusual new respiratory disease made news in January,… Read More

By Heather Caslin Approximately 30 million Americans have type 2 diabetes. The majority are over 45 years old. © Vitalii Vodolazskyi, stock.adobe.com Within the pancreas, β-cells produce insulin that delivers energy to tissues through glucose. People with type 2 diabetes have smaller, less functional β-cells; however, the mechanisms that drive… Read More

by Marissa Shapiro Jun. 24, 2020, 11:57 AM By applying unsupervised and automated machine learning techniques to the analysis of millions of cancer cells,Rebecca Ihrie and Jonathan Irish, both associate professors of cell and developmental biology, have identified new cancer cell types… Read More