Brandt F. Eichman, assistant professor of biological sciences and biochemistry at Vanderbilt University, has received Sigma Xi's Young Investigator Award.

For the first time, structural biologists have managed to obtain the detailed three-dimensional structure of one of the proteins that form the core of the complex molecular machine, called the replisome, that plant and animal cells assemble to copy their DNA as the first step in cell reproduction.

Former United States Senate Majority Leader and transplant surgeon Bill Frist, M.D., is returning to Vanderbilt to lead a first-of-its-kind academic experience at the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management.

Vanderbilt University has attained the rank of 20th in the nation in the total value of federal science and engineering research grants awarded to campus researchers, according to an annual report compiled by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Jeff Balser, M.D., Ph.D., associate vice chancellor for Research for Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has been named dean of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Balser, who has served as interim dean since July 2008, becomes only the 11th dean of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine since its founding in 1875. In addition to his responsibilities as dean, Balser will be associate vice chancellor for Health Affairs, with continued oversight for medical center research.

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.