New research shows that about half of pediatric patients who died of sepsis over the past 20 years at Vanderbilt University Medical Center had evidence of an inflammatory state called persistent inflammation, immunosuppression and catabolism syndrome.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has received a $31.6 million federal grant to lead a national effort to better understand acute respiratory distress syndrome, pneumonia and sepsis.

A Vanderbilt study found that patients with serious pneumococcal infections, including pneumonia and sepsis, are at a substantially increased risk of heart attack after the onset of infection.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center had a leading role in a large national study designed to compare two early interventions in the treatment of patients with sepsis, the body’s severe response to an uncontrolled infection.

Regulation of the enzyme Sirtuin 1 in blood vessel endothelial cells may drive altered metabolism and vascular dysfunction during sepsis, Vanderbilt researchers have discovered.

The increasingly antibiotic-resistant bacterium Acinetobacter baumannii requires zinc to cause infection, and Vanderbilt researchers have identified the zinc uptake system it uses.

Rapid blood culture diagnostics for patients with bacterial bloodstream infections delivered final results in 12 hours versus the two to three days required for conventional testing.