William Russell Ries, MD, professor of Otolaryngology and Carol and John S. Odess Professor of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in the Department of Otolaryngology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, died Jan. 5. He was 67.

Thomas Naslund, MD, professor of Surgery, will be stepping down as chief of Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s division of Vascular Surgery, a role he has performed adeptly for 21 years.

Images of cells and tissues are a critical part of biomedical research as they show which molecules or proteins are present and where these molecules are located in the tissue. Using increasingly sophisticated microscopes and imaging approaches, scientists can now look at more than 40 different molecules at once, an approach known as multi-plex imaging, where in the past they could only look at three or four molecules at a time.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers have discovered individuals with type 1 and type 2 diabetes infected with COVID-19 are three times more likely to have a severe illness or require hospitalization compared with people without diabetes.

The difficulty of policymaking with a divided government and electorate was the underlying theme of the Research into Policy and Practice webinar sponsored by the Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center as panelists and attendees gathered virtually to take measure of the post-election American landscape, over which hangs the pall of a surging pandemic.

Improvements to the web-based My Health at Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt Health’s online patient portal, have made it easier for health care teams — including patients and their designated health agents — to add and access an End of Life Care Plan to guide medical decision making.