medicine

Scientists have detected previously unnoticed chemical signals that individual cells in the immune system use to communicate with each other over short distances.

Not all recovering alcoholics smoke cigarettes, but almost all of them drink coffee, according to a new Vanderbilt study suggesting that healthy consumatory behaviors could help addicts kick their habit.

The South is known for many things: hot, steamy summers, iced tea laced with sugar and friendly people with a tendency to welcome strangers. But beneath the veneer of Southern hospitality and gracious living lurks a silent killer: cancer. Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center researchers have their own name for the southern region of the United States: the "cancer belt."

Summertime activities can be fun but they can also place your eyes at an increased risk for long-term damage from the sun, or perhaps worse.

Dr. Levi Watkins Jr., whose passionate advocacy for racial equality and diversity was shaped by his early exposure to the Civil Rights Movement and its leaders, has been named the university's 2008 Distinguished Alumnus. The Vanderbilt Alumni Association will honor Watkins, a noted cardiac surgeon, at an Oct. 22 dinner at the Student Life Center.

After recent efforts to develop a vaccine to protect against AIDS proved ineffective, the National Institutes of Health announced a change in research direction; and it\'s one that will involve the lab of James Crowe, M.D., professor of Pediatrics, Microbiology and Immunology at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children\'s Hospital at Vanderbilt.

There\'s more to great health care than medicine. While physicians, nurses and hospital administrators are experts at patient care, they often lack the business skills needed to be effective managers. The new Vanderbilt Master of Management in Health Care is a one-year degree program designed to arm clinical professionals with the business fundamentals and decision-making skills needed to successfully manage people, programs and processes.