The commensal bacterium Turicibacter sanguinis could be used to protect against severe intestinal infections, Vanderbilt researchers discovered.

An undergraduate artist worked with the Vanderbilt researchers to create this oil painting, inspired the research. They are working to better design immune therapies that attack tumors without also attacking healthy normal tissue in patients.

Twelve current investigators at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Vanderbilt University are on this year’s list of scientists whose papers have been cited the most frequently by other researchers.

Vanderbilt research discovers that iron storage “spheres” inside the bacterium C. diff — the leading cause of hospital-acquired infections — are important for infection in an animal model and could offer new targets for antibacterial drugs.

Reporting Nov. 6 in Cell Reports Medicine, Ivelin Georgiev, PhD, and colleagues demonstrated that antibodies isolated from children’s blood samples displayed high levels of neutralization and potency against variants of the COVID-19 virus, SARS-CoV-2, even when the children had not previously been exposed to or vaccinated against those variants.

Vanderbilt's James E. Crowe, Jr, MD, and Neil Osheroff, PhD, are among 12 individuals honored by the Association of American Medical Colleges during its 2023 Awards Recognition Event.