Message From The Dean

The holidays are upon us and with them an opportunity to relax, enjoy family and friends, and reflect on the halfway point of the academic year. It’s been a busy one with some major infrastructure changes either underway or about to begin. The Medical Center underwent a transition to a new electronic medical record system (Epic) in early November, and the University is moving to a new general ledger (SkyVU) in January. Both systems are essential to the future of VUMC and VU and will eventually be worth the pain associated with the adoptions – fingers crossed!

I’d like to reflect on two events that took place nearly simultaneously at the end of November. The first was Culturally Aware Mentor Training, a two-day workshop on November 28-29 arranged by Linda Sealy, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and led by Angela Byars-Winston and Christine Pfund from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Mentoring is a critical component of training our graduate students, postdocs, and research staff. Most investigators have no formal instruction in this essential skill, leading to greatly uneven trainee experiences that can have significant implications for success in graduate school and career choice. Given the substantial resources we commit to faculty recruiting, development, and retention, we need to assure that all our faculty interact productively with the members of their research groups. This will not only enhance the quality of every student’s experience but it will increase the group’s productivity and ability to do world-class research. The world becoming increasingly more multi-cultural, which adds the important dimension that faculty and students will likely come from different backgrounds. This needs to be reflected in the mentor-mentee relationship.

Vanderbilt prides itself on its commitment to graduate education and training, and we just celebrated the 25^th anniversary of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program. Consistent with our national leadership role, Vanderbilt was the second institution to host Drs. Byars-Winston and Pfund for the Culturally Aware Mentor Training program. Attendance at this initial workshop was limited to senior institutional leaders in graduate training. The outstanding program blended scholarly literature, individual case studies, and dialog – lots of dialog. Some uncomfortable situations and issues were identified and discussed. Data from Vanderbilt graduate student exit interviews seemed reassuring in that over 90% of our students expressed a high level of satisfaction with their training experience and research advisors. However, a deeper dive revealed that a significant number of minority and female graduate students experienced subtle and/or outright harassment based on their minority status or gender by either faculty or other students. We’ve got serious work to do to correct such situations. We are planning to extend these mentoring workshops to all our training faculty over the next few years and will be monitoring outcomes to assess their impact. It is an important investment in the future of our research enterprise.

The second event was an Endowed Chair celebration that took place on the afternoon of November 29. Seva Gurevich (Pharmacology), Alyssa Hasty (Molecular Physiology and Biophysics), Richard Simerly (Molecular Physiology and Biophysics), Warren Taylor (Psychiatry), Matt Tyska (Cell and Developmental Biology), Alissa Weaver (Cell and Developmental Biology), and Danny Winder (Molecular Physiology and Biophysics) received endowed chairs. It was a pleasure to listen to short summaries of the tremendous impact these individuals have had at Vanderbilt through their research, education, and administration. We are fortunate to have them as colleagues and to be able to recognize their important contributions.

Endowed chairs at Vanderbilt carry a corpus of $2 million, and a portion of the investment is used to provide funds for salary and research. Creating additional chairs is a high priority for the University, so it has established the Chancellor’s Chair Challenge as part of the Chancellor’s Endowment for Graduate Education and Research. This Challenge offers donors the opportunity to fully endow a chair with a $1 million donation, which is matched by $1 million from the University. It’s a great program that underscores the value of endowed chairs to our faculty and our future.

Happy holidays,

Larry Marnett

News

eI² – The Enabling Innovation Initiative is Online!

Last month, we introduced eI², a new program launched by Rob Carnahan, Chuck Sanders, and Alan Bentley to promote a culture of innovation and the dissemination of new knowledge and discoveries through entrepreneurial pathways. You can now learn more about eI² from its new website. There, among other things, you’ll find a complete list of upcoming seminars as well as important links and FAQs for people interested in pursuing an entrepreneurial venture. You’ll be hearing more about eI² in upcoming months, so stay tuned! In the meantime, don’t miss the first seminar by Dr. Chase Spurlock (CEO of iQuity) and Dr. Thomas Aune (VUMC Professor of Medicine & co-Founder of iQuity), to be held Jan. 5^th at 3:00 PM in 214 Light Hall.

AWARDS Abound!

Congratulations to New Basic Sciences AAAS Fellows!

Our heartiest felicitations to Timothy Blackwell, David Cortez, Bruce Damon, Sebastian Joyce, Borden Lacy, Ian Macara, Hal Moses, Ann Richmond, Jayant Shenai, Richard Simerly, Eric Skaar, Michelle Southard-Smith, Luc Van Kaer, Mark Wallace, and David Wasserman, who have been appointed Fellows of the AAAS.

Sato Memorial International Award
Our warmest congratulations to Craig Lindsley, recipient of the 2018 Sato Memorial International Award in Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry from the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan!

Highly Cited Authors
Jeff Conn (Pharmacology), Craig Lindsley (Pharmacology), and David Sweatt (Pharmacology) have, once again, made Clarivate Analytics list of highly cited researchers.

American Society of Cytopathology Young Investigator
Kudos to Vivian Weiss (Pathology, Microbiology, & Immunology) for being the first ever winner of the ASC Young Investigator Award. Vivian was one of 3 applicants chosen from an initial selected pool of 12. The 3 finalists attended a workshop in science communication and then pitched their research in a 3 min “Sharktank” presentation followed by a 7 min question period to four judges and an audience at the national ASC meeting. Vivian won that competition and the $50,000 award.

Lou DeFelice Travel Award Winner
Undergraduate trainee Jessica Robinson and her mentor Richard Gumina traveled to Phoenix, Arizona for the 2017 ABRMS Conference after Jessica won a Lou DeFelice travel award. Jessica, whose summer research was supported by the Leadership Alliance, won the award for best presentation in the biochemistry section at the meeting. Congratulations Jessica!

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 postdoctoral fellows as they pursued a wide range of career goals. To highlight the successes of these students and postdocs, Basically Speaking is sharing their stories. In this issue, we feature Elizabeth Hibler, who used her postdoctoral training at Vanderbilt to launch her academic career in public health.

New Discoveries

Key to Mitotic Symmetry

New findings from Kathy Gould and her laboratory explain how phosphoinositides help to anchor the contractile ring during cell division, and they report the use of super-resolution microscopy to map 29 contractile ring components.

New Approaches to Autism

Using BioVU combined with laboratory studies, Ana Carneiro and James Sutcliffe have discovered that variations in integrin subunit beta 3 may play a role in the development of autism, particularly in boys.

The Inflammatory Link Between Salt and Hypertension

Annet Kirabo and her laboratory report evidence that salt-mediated activation of dendritic cells contributes to hypertension.

A Window into Lung Cancer Through the Blood

New research from Christine Lovly and her lab demonstrates how information gleaned from ctDNA isolated from blood samples can be used to monitor disease progression in small cell lung cancer patients.

External Funding Opportunities

AAAS Martin and Rose Wachtel Cancer Research Award
Young cancer researchers are encouraged to submit an application to AAAS to compete for the $25,000 Martin and Rose Wachtel Award. The application involves writing a 1500 word essay on the nominee/applicant’s research. The deadline is Feb. 1, 2018.

Internal Funding Opportunities

Basic Sciences Bridge Funding
Applications for the next round of Bridge Funding should be submitted no later than January 15.  Information on the Bridge Program and the on-line submission system can be found here. Primary Basic Sciences faculty are encouraged to take advantage of this mechanism to help them either maintain project momentum during temporary lapses of funding or to scientifically realign projects to embrace new directions.

Pilot and Feasibility Grants for Diabetes and Obesity Research
The deadline is Jan. 15, 2018 to apply for Pilot and Feasibility grants from the Vanderbilt Diabetes Center, the Vanderbilt Diabetes Research and Training Center (DRTC), and the Vanderbilt Center for Diabetes Translation Research (CDTR). Grants are available in the areas of Translational or Behavioral Research, Basic or Clinical Research, or pilot studies that utilize the High-Throughput Screening Facility, Mass Spectrometry Research Center, or BioVU.

Pilot and Feasibility Grants for Disgestive Disease Research
The deadline is Jan. 19, 2018 to apply for Pilot and Feasibility grants from Vanderbilt Digestive Diseases Research Center (VDDRC). Opportunities include Pilot and Feasibility Grants and a Young Investigator Award.

Limited Submissions Opportunities (LSOs)

Improved Limited Submissions Opportunities Process
Limited submissions opportunities (LSOs) are funding opportunities offered by sponsors that limit the number of applications that can be submitted from each institution. The Provost’s Office has now started an initiative to increase awareness of these opportunities and streamline the application process to become Vanderbilt’s nominee. Basically Speaking highlights LSOs prior to the application deadline (see below), but all interested parties are encouraged to sign up to receive updates. Read more.

The Keck Foundation Research Program
Vanderbilt University can nominate two applicants, one in research and one in science and engineering for the W.M. Keck Foundation Research Program, which provides grants of ~$1 million in support of research that has a distinct and novel approach, questions a prevailing paradigm, or has the potential to break open new territory in the field. Applications to be a Vanderbilt nominee are due Dec. 31.

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