Nancy J. Brown, M.D., chair and physician-in-chief of the Department of Medicine in the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, shared a bumper crop of good news in her annual State of the Department address last week.

Vanderbilt’s Robert Coffey Jr., M.D., has received an Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) — more than $6.6 million over seven years — to support studies aimed at advancing the diagnosis and treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC), a leading cancer killer.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) have developed a screening tool intended to more quickly identify patients with acute kidney injury (AKI).

Shichun Bao, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of Medicine, unclips an insulin pump smaller than a deck of cards from her waistband to glance at its digital readout — but she doesn’t actually have diabetes and the pump contains only saline.

A novel population of lung stem cells plays an important role in regulating the pulmonary microvasculature — the network of tiny blood vessels where oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange takes place.

Blood type A was associated with longer ovarian cancer survival in a recent Vanderbilt-led study.

RSV infection reduces the risk of infection with human rhinovirus, which could have implications for vaccine development and prevention strategies for viral respiratory tract infections in infants.