Strategic Plan

Vanderbilt University scientists are a step closer to understanding how inflammation in the body can affect mood and behavior.

People with high fitness levels in midlife have significantly lower annual health care costs after age 65 than people with low fitness in midlife, after adjusting for cardiovascular risk factors, according to a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC).

The National Institutes of Health has awarded a four-year, $6 million grant to investigators at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) and the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) to develop an implantable artificial kidney.

A compound developed by researchers at Vanderbilt University can improve early symptoms and delay progression of Huntington’s disease in a mouse model of the neurodegenerative disorder.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has received a $9.4 million grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to test the effectiveness of a transdermal nicotine patch in improving memory loss in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a precursor to Alzheimer’s disease.

Nearly half of all patients with malignant melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, have a mutation in the BRAF gene found in their tumors. Mutations in the BRAF gene turn on a cancer growth switch known as the MAP kinase pathway.

Quinton Smith doesn’t remember much of what happened one Sunday evening last March. He was disoriented, unable to stand and could not even recognize his girlfriend’s face after she returned home from work.