Living in an economically disadvantaged neighborhood is likely to lead to death at an earlier age, especially among African-Americans according to new research. The death rate is even more pronounced among disadvantaged individuals with unhealthy lifestyle habits.

A swarm of cicadas that left thousands of insect carcasses across the Vanderbilt University campus in 2011 is leading to transinstitutional research at the Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering (VISE) and Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) to develop a surgical planning tool to help restore speech for people with vocal fold paralysis.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center is encouraging its medical providers to stop using saline as intravenous fluid therapy for most patients, a change provoked by two companion landmark studies released today that are anticipated to improve patients' survival and decrease kidney complications.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to starve a tumor and stop its growth with a newly discovered small compound that blocks uptake of the vital nutrient glutamine.

Opioid prescribing has increased 471 percent from 1996 to 2012, according to a new Annals of Emergency Medicine study, "Emergency Department Contribution to the Prescription Opioid Epidemic."

Patients with serious brain disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia could benefit from an investigational new drug (IND) that has received notification from the FDA that testing in humans may proceed after more than 10 years of research by scientists at Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

On Feb. 9, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Emflaza (deflazacort) tablets and oral suspension to treat patients age 5 years and older with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

A consortium led by Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) researchers has received funding as it makes plans for a multicenter trial that could determine whether deep brain stimulation (DBS) slows the progression of Parkinson's disease in early-stage patients.

The Vanderbilt University School of Medicine has long been recognized as a national leader in biomedical research. Nowhere is this more evident than in the rise in federal research funding to faculty members in the school's Department of Medicine.

In a new study, Vanderbilt pharmacologist Jerod Denton, Ph.D., Ohio State entomologist Peter Piermarini, Ph.D., and colleagues report an experimental molecule that inhibits kidney function in mosquitoes and thus might provide a new way to control the deadliest animal on Earth.

Emerging viral infections like Zika keep popping up around the world in such quick succession that medicine is having a hard time keeping up. It can take 15 years and more than $1 billion to bring a new drug to market.

National Institutes of Health researchers have identified a novel role for a gene known as heat shock protein 60 (Hsp60), finding that it is critical in tissue regeneration and wound healing. The study found that topical treatment of an Hsp60-containing gel dramatically accelerates wound closure in a diabetic mouse model.

The Robert J. Kleberg, Jr. and Helen C. Kleberg Foundation has awarded a $3 million grant over the next three years to Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) investigators in support of VICC's drug discovery program.

Through the new Vanderbilt Center for Addiction Research (VCAR), researchers from diverse scientific disciplines are joining forces to define the molecular events that drive addictive behavior and ultimately to develop new treatments that can help people sustain long-term recovery.