A drug in use clinically to help make vaccines more effective may be a powerful new tool for fighting antibiotic-resistant infections.

Germ-killing robots are being enlisted to further safeguard Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) patients from health care-associated infections.

Understanding factors, such as the receptor TLR9, that detect and defend against pathogens may lead to therapeutic approaches that promote an effective immune response to treat infections.

Vanderbilt University investigators have identified a cellular receptor for a toxin from Clostridium difficile (“C. diff”) — the leading cause of hospital-acquired diarrhea in the United States.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers have found that bathing critically ill patients with disposable chlorhexidine cloths did not decrease the incidence of health care-associated infections when compared to less expensive nonantimicrobial cloths, according to a study appearing online in JAMA this week.

On Jan. 10, the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt reached impressive new territory — 365 days without a single case of central line associated blood stream infection (CLABSI), catheter associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) or ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP).