Epithelial Biology Center

March 18, 2026

Motor protein plays key role in intestinal stem cell identity, function

Study findings suggest a new therapeutic approach for a rare digestive disorder, microvillus inclusion disease.

September 8, 2025

SPORE grant funds $12 million for colorectal cancer research

SPORE grants are highly sought after because they show that a cancer center demonstrates scientific excellence, promotes collaboration, maintains robust research programs and merits substantial funding.

Ken Lau, PhD, left, and Bob Coffey, MD, have made several important discoveries about colorectal cancer that are aiding the search for new, more effective therapies. (photo by Erin O. Smith)
December 11, 2023

Colorectal cancer ‘cartography’ reveals an avenue to improved immunotherapy

Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers have discovered why most colorectal tumors escape detection and destruction by the body’s immune system.

July 12, 2022

Probing the tumor microenvironment

Vanderbilt researchers used single-cell sequencing, imaging, and computational approaches to characterize the colonic tumor microenvironment, providing important insights to the components that play roles in colorectal tumor pathogenesis.

Stomach
May 19, 2022

Molecular ‘switch’ may illuminate stomach disorders

An international team that included researchers from Vanderbilt University Medical Center has discovered a molecular switch that induces rapid proliferation of zymogen granule-secreting chief cells in the stomach to regenerate damaged tissue.

September 21, 2021

The role of polarity in early cancer

Mutations in the protein epiregulin, an EGF receptor ligand, affect larger epithelial cell reorganization and may contribute to early cancer development, Vanderbilt researchers discovered.