Vanderbilt's Stokes Peebles, MD, has been appointed to the National Advisory Allergy and Infectious Diseases Council.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has been awarded a $5 million grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to establish a multidisciplinary center focused on training scientists and supporting research to minimize gaps between the generation of clinical evidence, implementation of proven interventions and development of informed public health policy.

The current standard of care for identifying targetable mutations in cancer treatment is to conduct molecular profiles on tumor tissue samples, but a study published Monday in JAMA Network Open indicates that adding liquid biopsy testing for circulating tumor DNA mutations increases targetable mutation detection rates.

Katherine Hartmann, MD, PhD, Vice President for Research Integration for Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has been named director of the University of Kentucky (UK) Center for Clinical and Translational Science. She will also serve as associate vice president for Research, Clinical & Translational Science for UK, and she will be the associate dean of Research Development and Synergy and a professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the UK College of Medicine. She will join UK on Feb. 15.

The STAR Clinical Research Network, based at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), has added two new partners — Essentia Health, a Minnesota-based rural health care system, and Stanford University School of Medicine, one of the country’s leading academic medical centers.

A new study published in the journal Diabetes demonstrates that a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) agonist, a member of a class of medication used to treat Type 2 diabetes and obesity, can lead to a rapid improvement in insulin sensitivity.

A potential therapy for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) targets the residual leukemic stem cells in bone marrow after treatment that are responsible for relapses and drug resistance.

The year 2023 was full of achievements and accolades for Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Department of Medicine.

Department of Medicine Drs. Jonathan Brown (Cardiovascular Medicine) and Matthew Semler (Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine) are among three VUMC physicians who have been elected this year to membership in the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), one of the nation’s oldest and most respected medical honor societies.

Bob Coffey, MD, an internationally recognized expert on colorectal cancer from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, was invited to present his research to representatives of President Joe Biden’s reignited Cancer Moonshot initiative.