The annual awards highlight outstanding achievements by women in the biological sciences.

Transformational scientific achievement in bench-to-bedside translational research forms the criterion for the ACTS Edward H. Ahrens Jr. Distinguished Investigator Award, given annually by the Association for Clinical and Translational Science.

Coronary artery disease and major depression may be genetically linked via inflammatory pathways to an increased risk for cardiomyopathy, a degenerative heart muscle disease, researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital have found.

Ongoing research by Eunyoung Choi, PhD, into how cells transform into abnormal versions of themselves that are the precursors to stomach cancer has received support from the American Association for Cancer Research.

Vanderbilt's Scott Smith, MD, PhD, has been awarded a five-year, $3.5 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, to study the human immune response to tick bites and its role in preventing tick-borne illnesses.

Excessive consumption of dietary sodium likely was responsible for up to 30% of cardiovascular disease-related deaths among mostly low-income participants in a large cohort study conducted by Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Laboratory and administrative personnel at Vanderbilt University Medical Center were honored on March 29 for research excellence during the 20th annual Research Staff Awards Ceremony.