Researchers at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center have found new genes that put people at higher risk for colon cancer and rectal cancer.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have uncovered a potential new way to help curb the rapidly rising worldwide prevalence of metabolic disorders, including obesity and diabetes.

The findings are the culmination of more than 25 years of research, and represent the group’s “opus magnus,” said Jacek Hawiger, MD, PhD, the paper’s senior author.

A subset of side effects continued to improve over time,” said the study’s senior author, Douglas Johnson, MD, MSCI, clinical director of melanoma at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and holder of the Susan and Luke Simons Directorship.

Griffin Rodgers, MD, director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health, described the urgency of the nation’s diabetes epidemic July 26 during a symposium of the NIDDK Medical Student Research Program in Diabetes and Obesity hosted by Vanderbilt University.

“This study will greatly expand our knowledge about the relationship between COVID-19 and diabetes and will also provide us novel information about what factors influence the early course of diabetes in children and adults with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes,” said principal investigator and project leader Russell Rothman, MD, MPP.

"Surprising findings have implications for cancer immunotherapies that aim to harness the tumor-killing power of T cells, and they challenge existing ideas about how T cells become exhausted", said Mary Philip, MD, PhD, assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Chase Hendrickson, MD, MPH, assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, has been named executive medical director of the Medicine Patient Care Center (PCC).

Nancy Cox, PhD, the Mary Phillips Edmonds Gray Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and director of the Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, is the recipient of the 2023 ASHG Leadership Award from the American Society of Human Genetics.

Gordon Bernard, MD, was honored at a reception on July 19 in recognition of his contributions to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for more than 40 years.