Health and Medicine

With research and development costs for many drugs reaching well into the billions, pharmaceutical companies want more than ever to determine whether their drugs already at market have any hidden therapeutic benefits that could warrant putting additional indications on the label and increasing production.

November is well-known as Lung Cancer Awareness Month. It is also the month that highlights awareness of less publicized forms of cancer including pancreatic cancer and stomach cancer.

The most emergent form of heart attacks is decreasing nationwide, but this declining incidence could affect emergency departments’ quality and timeliness of care.

A receptor in the brain that regulates appetite and body weight has now been found in L cells, key regulatory cells in the gut, providing the pharmaceutical industry with a novel drug target for both obesity and diabetes, a Vanderbilt University-led research team reported this week.

Vanderbilt researchers will play a key role in the second phase of the federal "tissue chip for drug screening" program.

Martin Blakely, M.D., M.S., has been awarded a $3 million federal grant for a multi-center, multi-disciplinary study to examine the safety outcomes of early versus later inguinal hernia repair for premature infants.