A Vanderbilt University Medical Center investigator is hoping to improve access to HIV testing in South Africa, where more than 7 million people are known to have the virus, by training traditional healers to perform the tests.

LeAnn Stokes, MD, associate professor of Clinical Radiology, has been appointed section chief of Interventional Radiology (IR) in the Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Despite being open less than a full year, Vanderbilt Health’s walk-in clinic in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, was recently named best walk-in clinic in The Chronicle of Mt. Juliet’s annual Best of Mt. Juliet special section.

Health informatics expert and educator Jessica Ancker, PhD, MPH, has joined the Department of Biomedical Informatics as vice chair for Educational Affairs. Ancker comes from Weill Cornell Medical College and Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, where she was an associate professor.

Vanderbilt University Adult Hospital’s (VUAH) new Operational Control Center will improve coordination of patient care, ensuring patients get the care they need without unnecessary delays.

HIV-1, the virus that causes AIDS, exploits inositol phosphates in T cells to aid its own assembly and maturation — suggesting that targeting inositol phosphate binding could inhibit HIV-1 replication.