A multidisciplinary study conducted by the combined efforts of Vanderbilt University graduate students has led to the first evidence that abnormal messenger RNA export from the nucleus to the cytoplasm can cause human disease.

Inactivation by oxidative stress of specific transcription factors essential for pancreatic islet beta cell function is a key event in the development of type 2 diabetes, Vanderbilt University researchers and their colleagues have found.

Vanderbilt University’s Betsy Weiner, Ph.D., R.N., senior associate dean for Informatics in the School of Nursing, and Mark Frisse, M.D., MS, MBA, Accenture Professor and director of Regional Informatics, have been elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the organization announced this week.

The 2013 Vanderbilt Prize in Biomedical Science has been awarded to Laurie Glimcher, M.D., Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean and professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.

Boston University biomedical engineer and MacArthur Fellow James Collins, Ph.D., will lecture at 3:10 p.m. Oct. 23 in the Jacobs Believed in Me Auditorium, part of the Vanderbilt School of Engineering’s Featheringill Hall.

Importin alpha 5, a member of a family of proteins that “shuttle” other proteins into the nucleus, is a potential new target for drugs to treat inflammatory diseases.