The Mama Lere Hearing School at Vanderbilt recently held its 2013 Student Celebration and Graduation in Light Hall on the Vanderbilt University Medical Center campus.

Jordan Berlin, M.D., professor of Medicine and Ingram Professor of Cancer Research at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, has received the Tree of Life award from Debbie’s Dream Foundation: Curing Stomach Cancer (DDF).

Neal Patel, M.D., MPH, professor of Clinical Pediatrics and chief medical information officer for inpatient services at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, is the first-place recipient of the 2013 Healthcare Informatics/AMDIS IT Innovation Advocate Award, recognizing leaders who have helped move the health care industry forward through their innovations.

Inspired by William Spickard, Peabody alumna Andrea McDermott Sanders, M.Ed., founded “Team William” in 2005 to support scholarships for children with Down syndrome to the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Reading Clinic.

Vanderbilt investigators led by Wesley Thayer, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of Plastic Surgery and Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation, have been awarded a $1.1 million grant from the Department of Defense to develop a new surgical device that may help repair severed nerves.

Vanderbilt University investigators have developed a new strategy for identifying the “bits” of a pathogen that spark a protective immune response.

A brain aneurysm is often likened to a ticking time bomb — the bulge in a blood vessel is just waiting to burst, with devastating consequences for motor and cognitive function.