It sounds like a potato chip. But CRISPR is actually the acronym for a new genome editing technique that, by many accounts, is accelerating the study of genes and disease.

Reporting last week in the journal Cell, researchers from Oregon Health and Science University, Harvard Medical School and Vanderbilt University describe the first “four-dimensional” picture of a brain receptor that plays a key role in learning and memory.

Vanderbilt University’s P. Jeffrey Conn, Ph.D., has won a Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for discoveries that could lead to new treatments for anxiety, schizophrenia and other brain disorders.

Researchers in the Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science have achieved the first conclusive non-invasive measurement of neural signaling in the spinal cords of healthy human volunteers.

Vanderbilt investigators have constructed a network map that could guide the development of new targeted cancer therapies.

Vanderbilt University’s Cyndya Shibao, M.D., MSCI, has received a Clinical Scientist Development Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.