Division of Cardiovascular Medicine

January 12, 2021

VUMC now leads world in heart transplantation

Vanderbilt University Medical Center performed more heart transplants in 2020 than any other center in the world — 124 adult hearts, 23 pediatric hearts and VUMC’s first heart-lung transplant since 2006.

By Matt Batcheldor
January 7, 2021

Freedman named director of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine

Jane Freedman, MD, will join Vanderbilt University Medical Center as director of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and the physician-in-chief of the Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute, effective Aug. 1.

By Matt Batcheldor
January 6, 2021

Genome editing technique “rescues” mice from accelerated aging disorder: study

Researchers from the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Vanderbilt University Medical Center for the first time have used a novel genome-editing technique to “rescue” mice from progeria, a rare genetic disease that causes accelerated aging.

By Bill Snyder
October 8, 2020

COVID patient’s heart-lung transplant is world’s first

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has performed the world’s first dual heart-lung transplant of a COVID-19 patient.

By Matt Batcheldor
Sourav Panja, PhD, underwent a complicated procedure at VUMC to treat his relatively rare form of pulmonary hypertension.
September 10, 2020

Technique helped treat patient’s rare pulmonary disorder

Sourav Panja, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, was working in his lab one evening last year when he began coughing up blood. Even breathing was becoming difficult.

By Matt Batcheldor
From left, Huan Tao, MD, PhD, Sean Davies, PhD, Jiansheng Huang, PhD, and MacRae Linton, MD, led the study that identified a potential new treatment for atherosclerosis.
August 20, 2020

‘Scavenger’ molecule may point to new atherosclerosis treatment

A small-molecule “scavenger” that reduces inflammation and formation of atherosclerotic plaque in blood vessels in mice potentially could lead to a new approach for treating atherosclerosis in humans, according to researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

By Bill Snyder
August 13, 2020

Study suggests new threshold for diagnosing PAH

Doctors diagnosing pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) — elevated pulmonary pressure due to an issue in the small vessels of the lung — rely on a hemodynamic threshold set in the early 1970s to determine whether patients would be candidates for pulmonary vasodilator therapy.
By Matt Batcheldor
July 30, 2020

Device allows VHVI doctors to monitor heart patients remotely

In 2018, Ronnie Kreis began to develop severe heart failure. After being hospitalized multiple times that year near his home in Oliver Springs in East Tennessee, he was told that nothing else could be done.
By Matt Batcheldor
July 27, 2020

Soy food, metabolism and the microbiome

Consumption of soy foods may shape the microbiome and protect against hypertension only in individuals with soy-responsive microbiota, Vanderbilt researchers have discovered.
By Sarah E. Glass
June 24, 2020

Study finds zinc doesn’t reduce mortality, other health risks, for heavy alcohol users living with HIV/AIDS

Zinc supplementation did not reduce mortality, cardiovascular risk, levels of inflammation or microbial translocation among people with heavy alcohol use living with HIV/AIDS, according to a Vanderbilt-led study.
By Matt Batcheldor
May 6, 2020

Ventricular assist device program hits major milestone

VHVI’s cardiac surgery and heart failure teams recently celebrated a milestone — implanting the 500th adult patient with a ventricular assist device.
By Matt Batcheldor
April 9, 2020

Research team awarded $9 million to study extracellular RNA in colorectal cancer

The NCI program project grant is supporting multiple projects that aim to define fundamental biological principles about extracellular RNA signaling and the development and aggressiveness of colorectal cancer, the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States.
By Leigh MacMillan
March 19, 2020

Race, hormones and diabetes risk

Variation in the levels of hormones called natriuretic peptides may contribute to racial differences in susceptibility to diabetes, suggesting that this hormone system may be a target for reducing risk of the disease.
By VUMC News and Communications