Chloe Snider Named Vanderbilt Prize Scholar

Congratulations to Chloe Snider, graduate student in Kathy Gould’s laboratory (Cell and Developmental Biology), who has been named the Vanderbilt Prize Scholar for 2017. The Vanderbilt Prize Scholar is a female Ph.D. candidate who has demonstrated excellent leadership qualities and outstanding potential to impact medicine through research during her career. The Vanderbilt Prize Scholar is mentored for one year by the Vanderbilt Prize winner, who for 2017, is Elaine Fuchs of the Rockefeller University.

Lillian Brady Awarded Academic Pathways Postdoctoral Fellowship

Welcome and congratulations to Lillian Brady (right in photo), one of the first recipients of a Vanderbilt Academic Pathways postdoctoral fellowship. Lillian is currently completing her Ph.D. in neurobiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham under the mentorship of Lynn Dobrunz (left). She will be pursuing her postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Heidi Hamm (Pharmacology).

Discovery Science Emerging Scholars Lectures

Dr. Rene Raphemot kicked off the Discovery Science Emerging Scholars lecture series on March 16^th with his well-attended talk on host factors critical to liver state malaria.

The second DSES lecture will be held April 13^th. The speaker will be Assistant Professor Stephanie Correa (right) who studies the impact of reproductive hormones on health and disease in her laboratory at UCLA. The title of her lecture, to be held at 4:00 PM in PRB 206 is “Sex-Specific Neural Regulation of Energy Balance”. Read more

Career Stories

Vanderbilt is one of only ten institutions nationwide to have received a Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training (BEST) award from the NIH. Through this funding, the Biomedical Research Education and Training (BRET) Office created its ASPIRE (Augmenting Scholar Preparation and Integration with Research-Related Endeavors) career development program. Since its inception in 2013, ASPIRE has touched the lives of numerous graduate students and postdocs as they pursued a wide range of career goals. To highlight the successes of these students and postdocs, Basically Speaking will be sharing their stories. Our first career story features Courtney Bricker-Anthony, who turned her passion for neuroscience into a career in science communication. Read more

New Discoveries

Key to Drug-Resistance Transporter Function

A report from Hassane Mchourab and collaborators reveals how the P-glycoprotein harnesses energy from ATP hydrolysis to drive the transport of cytotoxic drugs out of a cell. Read more

Anti-Anxiety Effects of Natural Cannabinoids

Research from Sachin Patel, Danny Winder, Roger Colbran, and Larry Marnett shows that endocannabinoids promote stress-resilience in animal models. Read more

Key to Mammary Cell Survival

New findings from Ian Macara and his laboratory identify the Par3 polarity protein as an exocyst receptor that promotes survival of mammary cells. Read more

Brightening up Lasers with Quantum Dots

Work from Sandy Rosenthal and her international collaborators is producing flying saucer-shaped quantum dots with unique properties. Read more

How Mosquitoes Find Their Prey

New research from Larry Zwiebel’s laboratory reveals a primitive olfactory system used by malaria-carrying mosquitoes to find humans. Read more

New Link Between Inflammation and Colon Cancer

Dana Hardbower, Keith Wilson, and their laboratories report that activation of the epidermal growth factor receptor in inflammatory cells contributes to colitis-associated cancer. Read more

Interplay of Genetics and Epigenetics in Esophageal Cancer

Recent research from Wael El-Rafai and his laboratory explores the complexities of gene expression, DNA copy number, and promoter DNA methylation in esophageal cancer. Read more

Teaching an Old Drug New Tricks Against Melanoma

A collaborative effort from the laboratories of Joshua Fessell and Vito Quaranta reveals that a drug used against HIV-AIDS can increase the sensitivity of melanoma cells to targeted therapy. Read more

New Funding

Steve Fesik (Biochemistry) and his laboratory have renewed their collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim. The pharmaceutical giant has announced its continued support for a multi-year program in the Fesik lab directed at the discovery and development of new cancer chemotherapeutic agents that target the KRAS activator Son of Sevenless (SOS). Read more

Colleen Niswender (VCNDD) has been awarded a Basic Research grant from Rettsyndrome.org. Rettsyndrome.org funds both basic and translational research aimed at developing new therapies for Rett Syndrome, a neurological disorder that results from a mutation in MECP2 (methyl CpG binding protein 2). The Niswender lab will use their funding to study the effects of metabotropic glutamate receptor 3 modulation as a potential therapeutic approach to treatment of Rett Syndrome and related disorders resulting from abnormal MECP2 expression.

Anna Vilgelm (Cancer Biology) has received a grant from the Breast Cancer Research Foundation to study the interaction between breast cancer chemotherapy drugs and the immune system. Read more

Funding Opportunities

Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Call for Applications

HHMI requests applications for the 20 new HHMI appointments it plans to make in 2018. All grant-holding tenure/tenure-track faculty who are in years 3.75-12 of their independent careers as of June 1 are eligible. Applications are due June 27. Read more

United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) Funding Opportunity

The BSF has announced a three-year program in Transformative Science for collaborations between U.S. and Israeli partner laboratories. The pre-proposal deadline is April 27. Read more

NIH Guide E-Mail List

If you have not already done so, you are encouraged to subscribe to the NIH Guide email list. The weekly NIH Guide provides a wealth of information on NIH grant programs, including RFAs for special one-time grant programs.  To subscribe, follow the instructions at the following web site: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/listserv.htm

NIH Regional Program Funding and Grants Administration Seminars

The NIH is sponsoring regional seminars on program funding and grants administration. Registration is now open for programs in New Orleans (May 3-5, 2017) and Baltimore (Oct 25-27, 2017). The program is targeted to new investigators, research administrators, grant writers, and others who work with NIH grants and contracts.

Enhancing Research IT Resources

A working group to identify and prioritize research IT needs has been appointed. Read more