October 11, 2021

The National Endowment for the Humanities has selected the Vanderbilt College of Arts and Science for a significant grant to strengthen interdisciplinary humanities scholarship while enhancing career skills for recent Vanderbilt graduates who have doctorates in the humanities. The College of Arts and Science will receive $500,000 from the NEH American Rescue Plan: Humanities Organizations program, which is designed to ensure that humanities-related groups across the nation can continue their mission during the COVID-19 pandemic. The grant enables Vanderbilt to establish the Collaborative Humanities Postdoctoral Program, which will fund 10 postdoctoral fellowships for the next academic year using the grant and college resources. MORE

Nine startups with roots at Vanderbilt have been awarded more than $4.5 million in federal Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer grants and matching funds from Launch Tennessee, with the goal of accelerating technology commercialization, innovation and job creation across the state. The Wond’ry, Vanderbilt’s Innovation Center, and the Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization contributed to the startups’ growth in various capacities, from assisting with ideation and R&D to facilitating invention disclosures and commercialization services. According to Launch Tennessee, companies awarded their SBIR/STTR Matching Funds have created over 505 direct jobs and brought in $146,125,214 in economic impact to Tennessee—a return of $11.24 for every public dollar invested into the program. MORE

Vanderbilt scientists Katherine Aboud, PhD’19, Breann Brown and Will Wan, PhD’14, have received 2021 National Institutes of Health Director’s Awards for their unconventional, bold approaches to research that advances knowledge and enhances health. These grants are awarded from the NIH Common Fund’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research Program, which supports “highly innovative and unusually impactful biomedical or behavioral research proposed by extraordinarily creative scientists.” Aboud [from Peabody College] has been awarded the Early Independence Award to develop a noninvasive brain stimulation protocol to treat low reading comprehension in adults. Brown and Wan, who are both assistant professors of biochemistry in the School of Medicine Basic Sciences, have received New Innovator Awards [1) to use structural biology and enzymology to understand how mitochondrial proteins assemble in cells to produce energy and maintain human health and 2) to determine the mechanisms that drive viral infection by characterizing these molecular processes in cellular environments, respectively.] MORE

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programs have been used to improve mental health since their introduction to the public in 1979. Led by David Vago, research associate professor of psychology, a comprehensive review of 45 studies conducted over recent years has revealed that mindfulness strategies may also moderately improve brain health. Together with 15 teams from other research institutions, Vago surveyed unique studies that looked at the effects of eight-week MBSR programs compared to other control interventions. The MBSR programs all consisted of meditation training encompassing focused attention, open awareness, movement-based practice and information practice. This review connects the dots across dozens of studies to underscore that eight-week mindfulness-based programs can improve cognitive function, including attention, perception, declarative memory, language, construction, reasoning and executive function—the skills we use in daily life. [This work was funded by the National Institutes of Health and was the largest of its kind in mindfulness research.] MORE

Phase 1 clinical trials of a Parkinson’s disease drug candidate developed at the Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery have been initiated by Appello Pharmaceuticals Inc., a clinical-stage therapeutics company focused on finding innovative early-stage drug candidates for patients with nervous system disorders. This drug candidate[, AP-472,]  . . . is intended to work with an existing Parkinson’s disease treatment, levodopa, to lengthen the time that people have relief from their Parkinson’s symptoms without experiencing debilitating side effects such as dyskinesias—uncontrollable involuntary movements, according to a release. “Once again, the focused effort of a hybrid deep basic science/drug discovery team in the WCNDD enabled the generation of AP-472[,” said Craig Lindsley, the William K. Warren, Jr. Chair in Medicine and director of the WCNDD.] MORE

Lymphedema is a chronic disease that causes fluid buildup in the body and can complicate normal functions. When this disease occurs in the head and neck, which is common after cancer treatments, quality treatments have been few—until now. Vanderbilt University professors Sheila Ridner at the School of Nursing and Barbara Murphy at the School of Medicine have contributed to the development of a first-of-its-kind device to treat head and neck lymphedema. Ridner and Murphy served as co-principal investigators on a study that discovered that most lymphedema patients experienced severe discomfort that affected their quality of life while performing everyday tasks, such as eating, drinking and swallowing. Ridner and Murphy saw this as an opportunity where a home-based therapy like those available to breast cancer survivors could alleviate the burdens associated with this form of lymphedema. They partnered with Tactile Medical, a leader in developing home therapy devices, in creating the innovative head and neck application of the Flexitouch® Plus system—a type of massaging garment worn over the head, neck and chest. MORE

Moments after Vanderbilt defeated Alabama to reach the final of the 2021 SEC Men’s Golf Championship at Sea Island Golf Club in Georgia, Scott Limbaugh served up a seemingly innocuous answer to a question posed in a television interview. “We liked our matchups a lot,” Vanderbilt’s head coach told the SEC Network reporter. “Felt good about them.” What sounded like boilerplate post-match platitudes had unusual roots. Beating Alabama, and then hours later beating Arkansas for the SEC title, came down to five student-athletes in one-on-one match play format. Limbaugh’s challenge had been to put them in an optimal position to shine. So the golf lifer had turned to a novice to help answer a critical question: Could game theory give the Commodores an advantage in match play lineups? The Vanderbilt family is teeming with researchers who are well-equipped to help answer Limbaugh’s question, including Eugene Vorobeychik, adjoint associate professor of computer science and computer engineering. Vorobeychik couldn’t help Limbaugh’s student-athletes read putts or pick the right clubs. But the computational game theorist knew all about optimal matchups. MORE