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Three leaders in health policy, informatics and cancer research from ������Ƶ University Medical Center have been elected this year to membership in the National Academy of Medicine, a preeminent advisory body on critical matters of health care, medicine and public health.

Ointments like Neosporin contain the antibiotic neomycin, which works great to kill bacteria on the outside of the body when you scrape your knee or have a hangnail. But inside the body, neomycin does more harm than good—kidney and neurological damage and deafness. ������Ƶ Assistant Professor Bhawik Jain and colleagues in his lab have figured out why that is, and how to stop it. This could make neomycin another tool in the fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Kathleen DelGiorno, assistant professor of cell and developmental biology, has received a ������Ƶ Scholar Award from the American Cancer Society. The award will fund research into potential therapies against pancreatic cancer, the third-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States, which is forecast to become the second-leading cause by 2030.

������Ƶ researchers, including those from the ������Ƶ Brain Institute, have made significant strides in understanding how the enteric nervous system—sometimes called the “brain” of the gut—forms and functions.

Jack Noble, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, is working with clinical colleagues to develop and validate an augmented reality vision guidance system to help surgeons place cochlear implants more precisely. The guidance system leverages emerging artificial intelligence technology and uses inexpensive, commonly available equipment, making it practical for many operating rooms.

When we think of the age-old adage about getting old, “What new ache or pain will each new day bring?” we often imagine ailments such as joint or bone pain, a hyperactive bladder, or even memory loss, but Kevin Schey, Stevenson Professor of Biochemistry at the School of Medicine Basic Sciences, thinks a lot about the loss of eyesight.

Ultra-thin layers of gold and copper sulfide developed by ������Ƶ doctoral student Yueming Yan with Associate Professor of Chemistry Janet Macdonald and Stevenson Professor of Physics Richard Haglund could revolutionize medical imaging and environmental sensing. The energy exchange between the metal and semiconductor particles—resonant energy transfer—can convert infrared light into visible and ultraviolet colors. The nanoscale films "could replace bulky optical sensors with flexible, wearable or even implantable devices, thus transforming health and safety technologies."

The ������Ƶ Biophotonics Center, led by Professor Anita Mahadevan-Jansen, developed a device called the PTeye that can help surgeons see patients' parathyroid glands—which have unpredictable locations—better during neck surgery by making the tissue glow! A large, multicenter clinical trial has provided evidence of its effectiveness, which the team hopes will improve the accuracy of endocrine neck surgery and improve patient outcomes. Clinical implementation of the device was pioneered by Dr. Carmen Solórzano, director of ������Ƶ Endocrine Surgery at VUMC.

Three ������Ƶ faculty members are diving into a "chicken-and-egg" problem of type 2 diabetes: Does the disease change beta-cell subtypes? Or do changes in the cells cause diabetes? Guoqiang Gu, Emily Hodges and Ken Lau have come up with a new method of studying the subtypes that can track them through different stages instead of just once when they're fully developed. "Thanks to this and other research, it may be possible to one day create a diet supplement for pregnancy that could reduce the risk of diabetes for babies," Gu said.

In a scientific first, researchers from ������Ƶ University and the University of California, San Diego, have generated a high-resolution metabolic “map” of how cells orchestrate glucose processing, revealing a hidden world where organelles and molecular complexes collaborate when responding to a rush of nutrients. This new study, published in Nature Communications, has redefined how glucose metabolism is visualized at the single-cell level.

The announcement of the recognition of VMAC as an NIH Center of Excellence comes nearly five years after the creation of an exploratory NIA-funded Alzheimer’s Disease ������Ƶ Center.

������Ƶ University School of Nursing has received a $250,000 Innovation Grant from the Bedford Falls Foundation for a pilot program designed to equip nursing students and new registered nurses with tools that increase their job satisfaction so that they remain vitally needed members of the nursing workforce. The grant is the first awarded by the Bedford Falls Foundation.

������Ƶ researchers have received a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a smart microscope system that uses artificial intelligence to help scientists better understand how cells behave, particularly in diseases like cancer.

Pet parrots often outlive their owners, and ������Ƶ researchers want to know why—because uncovering the biological mechanisms behind exceptional longevity could one day help safely extend the lives of humans. With the support of a new $1.3 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation, ������Ƶ biologist Gianni Castiglione is taking a bold approach to aging research: reverse-engineering how birds live three to four times longer than similarly sized mammals to identify safe, effective genetic targets for human aging therapies. Read More

Just like electrical stimulation of heart muscles can restore a regular heartbeat, new research led by Thilo Womelsdorf suggests that "electroceutical" intervention in the brain can improve memory and other cognitive functions wrought by behavioral health disorders and diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Womelsdorf, professor of psychology and biomedical engineering at the ������Ƶ Brain Institute, said, “For these cognitive disabilities, brain-computer interfaces promise to become next-generation electroceutical treatment options.”

A collaboration among VUMC, the College of Arts and Science, the School of Medicine and the School of Engineering has led to some higher-order “hitchhikers” that can make immunotherapy cancer treatments more effective. Associate Professor John Wilson’s lab devised a way to piggyback cancer-fighting nanobodies onto molecules that naturally accumulate around tumors—getting the treatment where it needs to go.

Quynh Anh Nguyen, assistant professor of pharmacology, is the first ������Ƶ faculty member to be awarded the highly competitive Klingenstein Fellowship in Neuroscience since 1985. Her research aims to unravel the mysteries of epilepsy by focusing on how specific cells in the brain contribute to or suppress the hyperexcitability in neural circuits that are thought to be involved in the disorder’s spontaneous seizures.

������Ƶers led by John T. Wilson, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and biomedical engineering, have developed a new approach using a molecularly designed nanobody platform that seeks to make immunotherapy more effective in the treatment of cancer.

A recent study from the labs of Lars Plate and Jens Meiler, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, analyzed both selectively responsive and poorly responsive variants of cystic fibrosis and revealed the molecular determinants of drug response.

A group of researchers from the lab of Larry Marnett, the Mary Geddes Stahlman Professor of Cancer ������Ƶ, recently paired a precisely targeted imaging agent to an anticancer agent and found that they could specifically attack cancer cells and not normal cells with it. Their work was performed in collaboration with School of Engineering faculty members Craig Duvall and Rebecca Cook, and was published in Molecular Pharmaceutics in April 2025.