In January scientists at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and colleagues in Boston, Seattle and St. Louis were given an audacious goal to develop — in 90 days — a protective antibody-based treatment that potentially will stop the spread of the Zika virus.

The Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering (VISE) team of Robert Webster III, PhD, and Duke Herrell, MD, have received a $2.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop a new surgical robot for endoscopic transurethral prostatectomy.

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.

Scott Zeger, PhD, professor of Biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and a leading expert on the application of biostatistics to improve health around the world, will deliver the next Flexner Discovery Lecture on Thursday, April 18.

Erika Rodriguez-Muñoz, LMSW, receives her plaque from Josh Owens, LCSW, director of Transition Management, after she was named Carolyn Edwards Social Worker of the Year at the annual Social Work Luncheon. Rodriguez-Muñoz works at Vanderbilt Women’s Health One Hundred Oaks.

The Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences’ newest employee is a physical therapist — but he also has a wet nose and wagging tail.

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.