Reporter Jan 19 2018

Blocking a nerve-cell receptor in part of the brain that coordinates movement could improve the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, dyskinesia and other movement disorders, researchers at Vanderbilt University have reported.

James Mathis, JD, Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s (VUMC) Chief Compliance Officer, has accepted a new position as Chief Compliance Officer for UW Medicine, the academic health system of the University of Washington in Seattle. Mathis will depart VUMC on Jan. 22.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University and Florida State University have received a three-year, $1.5 million grant from the Military Suicide Research Consortium to develop and evaluate tools to help U.S. Navy primary care teams detect and manage suicide risk.

Arie Nettles, PhD, associate professor of Clinical Pediatrics and Vanderbilt Kennedy Center member, has been appointed by Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam as chair of the Statewide Planning and Policy Council of the Tennessee Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (DIDD). Nettles has served as a member of the council since 2014.

Tempus, a technology company focused on helping doctors personalize cancer care by collecting and analyzing large volumes of molecular and clinical data, and Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) have announced a new collaboration to improve outcomes for cancer patients.

Clinical trials expert Roger Lewis, MD, PhD, right, poses with Vanderbilt’s Yu Shyr, MD, following his recent Discovery Lecture. Lewis is chair of Emergency Medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.

André Churchwell, MD, greeted those gathered in Light Hall for Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture with a reminder that his father, Robert, gave the first such lecture at Vanderbilt 17 years ago.