Daniel Masys, M.D., professor and chair of Vanderbilt's Department of Biomedical Informatics, is the new president-elect of the American College of Medical Informatics.

Michael R. Petracek, M.D., a cardiothoracic surgeon currently practicing with Cardiovascular Surgery Associates and the Saint Thomas Heart Institute, and one of Nashville's leading heart surgeons for over 20 years, is leaving Saint Thomas Hospital to join the faculty of Vanderbilt University Medical Center as a full-time clinical professor of Surgery in the Department of Cardiac Surgery.

The Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center is leading a multi-institutional effort supported by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to identify "molecular signatures" of lung cancer.

Just before the peak of the holiday shopping season, U.S. PIRG (Public Interest Research Group) has released its 20th annual toy safety report. Experts at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt want parents to be aware of the potential hazards these toys may pose.

A 15-year-old Coffee County girl is recovering after becoming the first child to receive a simultaneous heart and double-lung transplant at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt on Nov. 8.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the first new therapy in almost a decade for pancreas cancer, the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center is recruiting healthy volunteers for the second phase of testing of a novel HIV vaccine regimen that also is being studied in AIDS-battered countries around the world.