Department of Medicine Archives

New Clinician Spotlight: Matthews Chacko

Apr. 8, 2021—Matthews Chacko, MD, has joined Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute as an assistant professor of Medicine, an interventional cardiologist and the director of peripheral vascular interventions.

VUMC creates new Adult Post-acute COVID Clinic

Apr. 8, 2021—On March 15, a new clinic opened at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the Adult Post-acute COVID Clinic. With no single location, the clinic is a coordinated service across adult general medicine and medical specialty clinics, with a telemedicine component to facilitate initial patient assessments in most cases.

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.

Vanderbilt mourns the passing of Pierre Massion

Apr. 6, 2021—Pierre Massion, MD, Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair and Professor of Medicine, an internationally known expert on early detection and prevention strategies for lung cancer, died April 4 of an apparent heart attack. He was 58.

New Clinician Spotlight: Robert Ramirez

Apr. 5, 2021—Robert Ramirez, DO, a thoracic and neuroendocrine oncologist, has joined Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center after practicing at Ochsner Medical Center and Louisiana State University (LSU) Health Science Center in New Orleans.

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.

Deanna Edwards, PhD, left, Jin Chen, MD, PhD, and colleagues are studying a new therapeutic strategy for triple-negative breast cancer.

Breast cancer cells ‘steal’ nutrients from immune cells: study

Apr. 1, 2021—Triple-negative breast cancer cells engage in a “glutamine steal” — outcompeting T cells for the nutrient glutamine and impairing their ability to kill tumor cells, Vanderbilt researchers have discovered.

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.