The discoveries that can change the course of human health forever often begin in the tiniest places: in molecules and cells, at the most fundamental intersection of physics, chemistry and biology. Understanding how these cellular and molecular processes work is the focus of basic biomedical research at Vanderbilt.

During the past two weeks, researchers at Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) have brought in a number of new research grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that together achieve $137 million in new funding. The funding is a trans-institutional accomplishment of the Schools of Engineering and Medicine and the College of Arts and Science.

A national search will be launched this fall for the Barlow Family Director of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Susan R. Wente announced today. Current VBI Associate Director Ron Emeson will begin a term as interim director effective July 1.

Jennifer Pietenpol, Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, B.F. Byrd Jr. Professor of Molecular Oncology and Professor of Biochemistry, Cancer Biology and Otolaryngology, has been named Executive Vice President for Research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). Her appointment is effective May 1.

Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Susan R. Wente announced today that Lawrence J. Marnett will be named dean of basic sciences in the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine at the time of the legal separation of the university and Medical Center.

Fourteen outstanding faculty members from across the university have been named to the 2016 class of Chancellor Faculty Fellows. The class comprises highly accomplished, recently tenured faculty from the humanities, social sciences, life and physical sciences, and clinical sciences, as well as business, education and engineering.

Huda Zoghbi, M.D., a physician-scientist known internationally for her extraordinary range of discoveries in neurology and neuroscience, is the recipient of the 2015 Vanderbilt Prize in Biomedical Science, Vanderbilt University officials announced today.