While the national economy appears to be getting stronger, health care has entered a national recession, Jeff Balser, M.D., Ph.D., vice chancellor for Health Affairs and dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, told a packed audience of approximately 1,100 Vanderbilt faculty, staff and students in Langford Auditorium on Wednesday afternoon while making his annual State of the Medical Center address.

Over the past three years, Vanderbilt University more than quadrupled earnings from its technology commercialization efforts — to more than $24.5 million in the 2013 fiscal year that ended June 30, officials have announced.

Award-winning New York Times science writer and columnist Carl Zimmer will deliver the next Flexner Discovery Lecture on Thursday, Oct. 3, on setting science “right” when it goes “wrong.”

Judith Warner, award-winning author of the New York Times bestseller “Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety,” will speak at Nashville’s Adventure Science Center at 7 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 8.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has received a five-year, $1.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop “bold and innovative approaches to broaden graduate and postdoctoral training.”

The Vanderbilt community is invited to attend the 12th annual Research Retreat, a showcase of cutting-edge biomedical science by Vanderbilt faculty members and trainees.