The protein kinase STK17A plays a novel role in epithelial cells and its loss may contribute to colorectal cancer invasion and metastasis, Vanderbilt researchers report.

“I think my favorite part of my job is trying to make this as good of an experience for the patient as possible."

A trans-institutional team of researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Vanderbilt University has received an $11 million Cancer Moonshot grant to build a single-cell resolution atlas to map out the routes that benign colonic polyps take to progress to colorectal cancer, the third most common cancer among both men and women in the United States.

A protein involved in binding cells together helps maintain the integrity of the intestinal mucosa and plays a protective role in ulcerative colitis.

Vanderbilt University has received a five-year, $2.5-million Physician Scientist Institutional Award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund to help bolster the dwindling number of active physician-scientists in the United States.

Richard Peek, MD, director of the Vanderbilt Digestive Disease Research Center (VDDRC) and chief of the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, has been appointed to serve on the advisory council of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).

It is estimated that nearly one out of five pediatric patients and one of three adult patients age 60 and older are malnourished and will experience a decline in their nutritional status during their hospital stay.