Department of Medicine

April 22, 2019

Asia’s diabetes epidemic preferentially kills women, the middle-aged: study

Diabetes has reached epidemic proportions in Asia and has dramatically increased the risk of premature death, especially among women and middle-aged people, a multinational study led by Vanderbilt University researchers has found.

By Bill Snyder

From left, Wei Zheng, MD, PhD, Jae Jeong Yang, PhD, Danxia Yu, PhD, and colleagues are studying smoking patterns and associated deaths in Asian countries.

April 18, 2019

Asian nations in early tobacco epidemic: study

Asian countries are in the early stages of a tobacco smoking epidemic with habits mirroring those of the United States from past decades, setting the stage for a spike in future deaths from smoking-related diseases.

By Tom Wilemon

April 11, 2019

Smith named president-elect of Tennessee Medical Association

M. Kevin Smith, MD, PhD, MMHC, assistant professor of Clinical Medicine, has been named president-elect of the Tennessee Medical Association (TMA) effective in May. He will serve as president from May 2020-May 2021.

By Nancy Humphrey

From left, Benjamin Brown, Christine Lovly, MD, PhD, Yun-Kai Zhang, PhD, Jens Meiler, PhD, and colleagues are exploring new ways to understand resistance to targeted cancer therapy drugs.

April 11, 2019

Study reframes approach to targeted therapy resistance

When a tumor mutates and develops resistance to a targeted therapy, researchers often focus on the acquisition of new mutations within the drug target as they seek an alternative treatment, but a team of Vanderbilt scientists has shown this may not be sufficient.

By Tom Wilemon

March 28, 2019

Drug interaction causes hypotension

A muscle relaxing-drug and inhibitors of the metabolic enzyme CYP1A2 interact to cause severely low blood pressure and should not be co-prescribed, Vanderbilt investigators caution.

By Leigh MacMillan

March 28, 2019

Treatment resistance of mental disorders studied

With the aid of a four-year, $3.4 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) will apply new techniques to investigate treatment resistance of two devastating mental disorders — major depressive disorder, which befalls 15 percent of people at some point in their lives, and schizophrenia, which affects approximately 1 percent.