Vanderbilt Kennedy Center director Pat Levitt has been awarded the 2005 Research Champion Award by the Autism Society of America (ASA).

Thomas F. Catron, associate professor of Psychiatry at Vanderbilt Medical Center, has been named by Governor Phil Bredesen as the director of the Governor‘s Office of Children‘s Care Coordination.

The great outdoors will keep children busy and active this season, but experts at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children‘s Hospital at Vanderbilt say parents would be wise to use a little precaution before play time to avoid insect-borne illnesses, typically caused by insect bites or stings.

This afternoon at approximately 4 p.m. LifeFlight will touch down outside the Country Music Hall of Fame for part of an evening gala to be held at the museum celebrating LifeFlight‘s 20 years of service to Middle Tennessee.

The Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center will launch a new research institute, jump-started with a $10 million gift from West Tennessee businessman Jim Ayers, to develop techniques to detect cancers at their earliest, most curable stages, Vanderbilt officials announced today.

Reaching out to children with autism and their families is what the Dan Marino Foundation is all about. The foundation recently expanded its impact through a gift of $100,000 to the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development. The gift, the first major donation the foundation has made outside of its home base of South Florida, will create Dan Marino Foundation Fellowships and Dan Marino Foundation Discovery Grants and will support the center‘s outreach programs.