Watch video of Craig H. Kennedy, PhD, BCBA and chair of the Special Education Department; Professor, Special Education and Pediatrics Director at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Behavior Analysis Clinic Peabody College speaking Oct. 2.

Three generations of the family of the late Monroe Carell Jr. have pledged a gift of $20 million to the fundraising effort for a new facility to care for children and mothers. The Campaign for Children and Mothers, with a goal of $45 million, will support the building of a 400,000-square-foot facility, slated to open in 2012, adjacent to and connected with the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt.

Scientists have detected previously unnoticed chemical signals that individual cells in the immune system use to communicate with each other over short distances.

Vanderbilt's emergency physicians are urging the public to take precautions in the extreme heat. Corey Slovis, M.D., chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and medical director for Metro-Nashville Fire Department EMS and Nashville International Airport, said prolonged heat day after day can lead to dehydration. "Having several days of high temperatures can lead to dehydration," Slovis said.

Not all recovering alcoholics smoke cigarettes, but almost all of them drink coffee, according to a new Vanderbilt study suggesting that healthy consumatory behaviors could help addicts kick their habit.

The South is known for many things: hot, steamy summers, iced tea laced with sugar and friendly people with a tendency to welcome strangers. But beneath the veneer of Southern hospitality and gracious living lurks a silent killer: cancer. Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center researchers have their own name for the southern region of the United States: the "cancer belt."