Health and Medicine

Benjamin Brown, left, Jens Meiler, PhD, Zhenfang Du, PhD, and colleagues are studying the functional consequences of genetic mutations and how those changes can drive cancerous growth.

Personalized Structural Biology aids cancer treatment decisions

Apr. 8, 2021—Cancer specialists at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in partnership with biochemists and structural biologists across the Vanderbilt University campus, are taking “personalized” cancer therapy to a new level.

From left, Kimryn Rathmell, MD, PhD, Bradley Reinfeld, Matthew Madden and Jeffrey Rathmell, PhD, have discovered that immune cells — not cancer cells — are the major glucose consumers in the tumor microenvironment, upending a century-old observation.

Study revises understanding of cancer metabolism

Apr. 7, 2021—Tumors consume glucose at high rates, but a team of Vanderbilt researchers has discovered that cancer cells themselves are not the culprit, upending models of cancer metabolism that have been developed and refined over the last 100 years.

Genetic differences in Wilms tumor

Apr. 6, 2021—Unique somatic gene mutations may contribute to racial disparities in the incidence of Wilms tumor — the most common childhood kidney cancer.

Codeine metabolizer status in clinical practice

Apr. 5, 2021—Vanderbilt researchers have developed a response score using genetic and clinical information to aid prescribing of the widely used pain medication codeine.

COVID-19 met with intensive teamwork

Apr. 1, 2021—Team members serving COVID-19 inpatients were more densely connected, interacting far more than their medical ICU counterparts.

Novel way to neutralize Rift Valley Fever Virus

Apr. 1, 2021—The discovery of monoclonal antibodies that neutralize Rift Valley Fever Virus — an emerging infection with pandemic potential — lays the foundation for future therapeutic antibody development.

Study shows new COVID target could improve vaccines

Apr. 1, 2021—Despite an impressive vaccination effort that exceeds 2 million shots a day, rates of COVID-19 are again on the rise in several parts of the United States, as is the spread of highly transmissible variants of the virus.

Physician-scientists Aliyu, Tindle elected to ASCI

Mar. 31, 2021—Vanderbilt’s Muktar Aliyu, MBBS, MPH, DrPH, and Hilary Tindle, MD, MPH, will be inducted this year into the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), an elite honor society of physician-scientists from the upper ranks of academic medicine and industry.