Lorena Infante Lara

For the nearly 30 percent of major depressive disorder patients who are resistant to treatment, ketamine provides some amount of normalcy, but it requires frequent treatment and can have side effects. Vanderbilt researchers now show in proof-of-concept experiments that it may be possible to extend ketamine’s antidepressant effect from about a week to up to two months. Read More

A recent paper from the lab of Emily Hodges looks at how two types of epigenetic changes act together but on different time scales to affect gene expression during cell differentiation. Read More

In a new study published in Nature Communications, the Doug Kojetin and Zhongyue Yang labs use peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma—more commonly known as PPAR—as a model system to understand the functional shifts of nuclear receptor LBDs. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have developed a nanoparticle complex that can both visualize and attack cancer cells by targeting the tumor microenvironment. Read More

In a recent study, Vanderbilt researchers address a significant gap in our understanding of how noncoding regions of the genome regulate important biological processes, such as X-chromosome inactivation. They use an innovative, single-cell approach to uncover new mechanistic insights into how specific long noncoding RNAs control critical gene regulation events. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers developed a deep-learning tool, RNAmigos2, that accelerates the discovery of RNA-targeting small-molecule drugs by 10,000 times compared to traditional methods, unlocking a promising new frontier in medicine. Read More

Researchers from the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Vanderbilt University have figured out how two bacterial elements present in only some Helicobacter pylori strains lead to molecular changes in host tissues that favor the development of gastric cancer. Read More

Triple-negative breast cancer accounts for 10 percent of breast cancer cases in the U.S. annually. As T-cells that normally kill cancer cells often become exhausted and stop, Vanderbilt pharmacologists are seeking chemotherapy or targeted therapy approaches that can enhance the T-cell killing of cancer cells. Read More

Peanuts cause the highest number of food allergy–related deaths in the U.S. Basic scientists at Vanderbilt uncover how the allergy works and suggest new potential treatments. Read More

Vanderbilt and Northwestern University researchers characterized a group of KCNQ1 variants probe their role in a common heart disorder called LQTS. They found that there are five classes of mutations that act through independent mechanisms, suggesting that a more tailored/personalized treatment approach could be beneficial for LQTS patients. Read More