Pioneers of Discovery

July 16, 2015

Biochemistry’s Hodges stays grounded in joy of discovery

Albert Einstein once wrote, “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” For Emily Hodges, Ph.D., that awakening occurred in a high school science class taught by Trudy Anderson, Ed.D. “She made science exciting,” Hodges said.

By VUMC News and Communications
March 5, 2015

Zanic’s journey to the lab followed winding path

It’s roughly 5,000 miles from Croatia to Tennessee as the crow flies.

By VUMC News and Communications
December 4, 2014

Physician-scientist is dream job for Vanderbilt’s Cassat

Jim Cassat, M.D., Ph.D., a pediatric infectious disease specialist who joined the Vanderbilt faculty this summer, loves taking care of children with bone infections and doing research to understand the host-pathogen interactions during these invasive infections.

By Leigh MacMillan
August 28, 2014

Ascano seeks to shed light on cellular stress response

Ebola. Chikungunya. Influenza. What’s to be done about these headline-grabbing, debilitating, often lethal viruses?

By Bill Snyder
May 29, 2014

Pioneers of Discovery: Investigator taps into artistic side to reveal cells’ secrets

Dylan Burnette, Ph.D., points to one of the many striking photographs on his office walls. It’s a picture of a cell — a microscopic image showing yellow squiggles, bright purple lines and a turquoise oval on a black background, and it looks like abstract art.

By Leigh MacMillan
January 9, 2014

Pioneers of Discovery: Investigator seeks to debug cancer’s ‘bad software’

Beyond genetics — that’s the call Oliver McDonald, M.D., Ph.D., heard during the year between college and medical school he spent in a lab at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.

By Bill Snyder
December 5, 2013

Pioneers of Discovery: Investigator explores how cells decide what’s on surface

Jason MacGurn, Ph.D., a new assistant professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at Vanderbilt, is studying how cells make decisions about the protein composition of the cell surface.
By Leigh MacMillan
October 31, 2013

Pioneers of Discovery: Investigator driven to divine cellular ecosystem’s rulebook

Ken Lau, Ph.D., a new assistant professor in Cell and Developmental Biology, is out to determine the rules that lead to cells converting from one type to another, for example, when a healthy cell becomes a cancer cell.
By Bill Snyder
October 3, 2013

Pioneers of Discovery: Computer science drives Capra’s biomedical research

Tony Capra, Ph.D., is a new assistant professor of Biomedical Informatics and investigator in the Center for Human Genetics Research at Vanderbilt. His goal is to use the tools of computer science to address problems in genetics, evolution and biomedicine.
By Leigh MacMillan