Vanderbilt's Jennifer Pietenpol, PhD, and Yu Shyr, PhD, have been inducted as fellows of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy.

Ben Ho Park, MD, PhD, deputy director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, has been named the center’s new director.

Jennifer Pietenpol, PhD, director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC), Benjamin F. Byrd Jr. Professor of Oncology and Executive Vice President for Research for Vanderbilt University Medical Center, is stepping down on June 30 from her long-held role as the Cancer Center’s director to focus on a combined leadership role for VUMC as chief scientific and strategy officer (CSSO).

Vanderbilt researchers have discovered that aneuploidy (an abnormal number of chromosomes) drives malignant phenotypes in cells expressing mutant p53, a tumor suppressor protein that is mutated in more than half of all human cancers.

Vanderbilt researchers report a comprehensive tissue-specific atlas of protein and mRNA expression for p63 and p73, members of the p53 family signaling network that is the most frequent target of mutations in human cancers.