Vanderbilt University Medical Center has been designated a Lung Cancer Screening Center by the American College of Radiology.

The ability to test patients’ cancers for individual differences, mainly at the genetic level, and to make treatment decisions based on those differences is the hallmark of precision medicine, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) is among the leaders of this new approach to diagnosis and treatment.

A top Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) investigator recently met with Vice President Joe Biden regarding the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative, a major national program to identify, fund and accelerate the most promising research leading to cancer cures.

A genetic mutation that promotes cancer development blocks the normal sorting of a protein called “Argonaute 2.”

A targeted therapy for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), the most aggressive form of breast cancer, has shown potential promise in a recently published study. TNBC is the only type of breast cancer for which there are no currently approved targeted therapies.

Jennifer Pietenpol, Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, B.F. Byrd Jr. Professor of Molecular Oncology and Professor of Biochemistry, Cancer Biology and Otolaryngology, has been named Executive Vice President for Research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). Her appointment is effective May 1.

Signaling by a receptor that is overexpressed in aggressive forms of breast cancer has been linked to glutamine metabolism, suggesting new anti-cancer therapeutic targets.