Reporter April 9 2021

Christopher Menzel, MD, right, performed gastric bypass surgery for Kristian Wernet, left, a patient of the new Vanderbilt Weight Loss Center in Lebanon, Tennessee.

Weight Loss Center at VWCH helps expand bariatric surgery options

Apr. 13, 2021—In May 2020, dangerously high blood pressure put 44-year-old Kristian Wernet in the hospital, a tipping point that led him to become one of the first individuals to have gastric bypass surgery at Vanderbilt Wilson County Hospital (VWCH) as a patient of the new Vanderbilt Weight Loss Center in Lebanon, Tennessee.

New Clinician Spotlight: Matthews Chacko

Apr. 8, 2021—Matthews Chacko, MD, has joined Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute as an assistant professor of Medicine, an interventional cardiologist and the director of peripheral vascular interventions.

VUMC creates new Adult Post-acute COVID Clinic

Apr. 8, 2021—On March 15, a new clinic opened at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the Adult Post-acute COVID Clinic. With no single location, the clinic is a coordinated service across adult general medicine and medical specialty clinics, with a telemedicine component to facilitate initial patient assessments in most cases.

Benjamin Brown, left, Jens Meiler, PhD, Zhenfang Du, PhD, and colleagues are studying the functional consequences of genetic mutations and how those changes can drive cancerous growth.

Personalized Structural Biology aids cancer treatment decisions

Apr. 8, 2021—Cancer specialists at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in partnership with biochemists and structural biologists across the Vanderbilt University campus, are taking “personalized” cancer therapy to a new level.

VICC researchers featured at AACR Annual Meeting

Apr. 8, 2021—Researchers from Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center will have a robust presence during the first session of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting, April 10-15, as presenters, panelists and authors.

The new cardiac catheterization lab at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt features expanded space to better meet growing procedure volumes.

New cardiac cath lab opens at Children’s Hospital

Apr. 7, 2021—A new, state-of-the-art cardiac catheterization lab debuted recently at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt to meet the growing volume of the Pediatric Heart Institute.

Health care quality expert Berwick set for Discovery Lecture

Apr. 7, 2021—Donald Berwick, MD, MPP, one of the nation’s leading authorities on health care quality and improvement, will deliver the next web-based Discovery Lecture on Thursday, April 15, at 4 p.m. via Zoom.

COVID-19 lessons: VUMC, other hospital leaders pinpoint opportunities in National Academy Review

Apr. 7, 2021—The versatility of health systems in the national COVID-19 response underscore the challenges and opportunities for leaders to strengthen and design systems to better care for communities and respond to ever-changing needs, top health care delivery system leaders outline in a discussion paper for the National Academy of Medicine (NAM).

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.