NIDDK Archives

‘Pre-conditioning’ restores immune tolerance

Sep. 16, 2021—A treatment targeting T-cell metabolism could reinvigorate immune tolerance mechanisms to combat autoimmune disease and transplant rejection, Vanderbilt researchers discovered.

Regulators of fat cell metabolism

Sep. 7, 2021—Vanderbilt researchers have discovered new details of the regulation of fat cell metabolism, findings that are important for combating obesity.

Autoimmunity advance

Aug. 24, 2021—Vanderbilt researchers have developed a high-throughput screening method to identify and characterize antigen-specific B cells — potential biomarkers for autoimmune disease and targets for new treatments.

Mariana Byndloss, DVM, PhD, Woongjae Yoo, PhD, and colleagues are studying how a high-fat diet may contribute to heart disease. (Photo taken prior to revised masking guidelines.)

Study reveals missing link between high-fat diet, microbiota and heart disease

Aug. 12, 2021—A high-fat diet disrupts the biology of the gut’s inner lining and its microbial communities — and promotes the production of a metabolite that may contribute to heart disease, according to a study published Aug. 13 in the journal Science.

Motor protein linked to intestinal cell differentiation

Aug. 5, 2021—The motor protein MYO5B, a cause of the congenital intestinal disorder microvillus inclusion disease, does more than move cellular cargo, Vanderbilt researchers have discovered.

Gene expression in diabetic nephropathy

Aug. 5, 2021—Vanderbilt researchers are looking to mRNA populations in podocytes — kidney cells that help filter blood — to help identify potential targets for treating diabetic kidney disease.

New neurodegeneration culprit

Jun. 17, 2021—A young woman with a puzzling neurological illness and novel genetic variant pointed investigators to a role for dysregulated protein kinase D1 in neurodegeneration.

Beta cell regeneration

May. 20, 2021—Vanderbilt researchers dissected the complex microenvironment of the pancreatic islet to discover the signals that drive beta cell regeneration — as a possible treatment for diabetes.

New insights into kidney development

Apr. 15, 2021—Integrin-linked kinase, a central component of a complex that coordinates cell signaling involved in migration, proliferation and cell death, plays a role in kidney development and epithelial cell function.

From left, Kimryn Rathmell, MD, PhD, Bradley Reinfeld, Matthew Madden and Jeffrey Rathmell, PhD, have discovered that immune cells — not cancer cells — are the major glucose consumers in the tumor microenvironment, upending a century-old observation.

Study revises understanding of cancer metabolism

Apr. 7, 2021—Tumors consume glucose at high rates, but a team of Vanderbilt researchers has discovered that cancer cells themselves are not the culprit, upending models of cancer metabolism that have been developed and refined over the last 100 years.

HIV, diabetes and immune cells in fat

Mar. 18, 2021—In HIV-positive individuals with diabetes, immune cells in fat are more proinflammatory and cytotoxic and may represent a therapeutic target for diabetes.

Electronic health record study discovers novel hormone deficiency

Mar. 11, 2021—A novel hormone deficiency may exist in humans, Vanderbilt investigators have discovered. In an analysis of two decades worth of electronic health records, the researchers found that some patients have unexpectedly low levels of natriuretic peptide hormone in clinical situations that should cause high levels of the hormone.