A report by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center has shattered conventional wisdom about how cells, including cancer cells, shed DNA into the bloodstream: they don’t do it by packaging the genetic material in tiny vesicles called exosomes.

Vanderbilt researchers led by Eric Skaar are probing the mechanisms bacteria use when faced with nutrient starvation — a host defense strategy called “nutritional immunity.”

When a tumor mutates and develops resistance to a targeted therapy, researchers often focus on the acquisition of new mutations within the drug target as they seek an alternative treatment, but a team of Vanderbilt scientists has shown this may not be sufficient.

Stephen Fesik and colleagues are advancing cancer drug discovery with the characterization of small molecules that modulate RAS, an important target for anti-cancer therapies.

The protein MMP7 is elevated in blood from patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy who have cardiac dysfunction, suggesting that it may be a biomarker for heart disease severity.

A muscle relaxing-drug and inhibitors of the metabolic enzyme CYP1A2 interact to cause severely low blood pressure and should not be co-prescribed, Vanderbilt investigators caution.

New discoveries by Jason MacGurn and colleagues further understanding of the complex machinery that cells use take up substances from outside the cell.