Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center

When it comes to damaging sun rays, skin protection is a top priority for many. But there is another area that needs to be brought into focus — the eyes. Excessive exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light reflected off sand, water or pavement can damage the eyes, said Vanderbilt Eye Institute’s Mark Melson, M.D., oculoplastic and [...]

Jennifer Pietenpol, Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC), and Carlos Arteaga, M.D., professor of Medicine and Cancer Biology and leader of the VICC Breast Cancer Program, have been selected to serve on a new scientific panel to guide the research program of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, one of the world’s largest [...]

Sunday, June 6 was a day for hope, celebration and remembrance. Each June, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center hosts an annual Celebration of Cancer Survivorship to coincide with National Cancer Survivors Day. More than 350 cancer survivors, family members, friends and health care professionals who care for cancer patients came together for this year’s event. The event [...]

A new documentary about the exciting era of personalized medicine and health care is now available on YouTube. Your Genome and the Future of Medicine, developed by Vanderbilt University Medical Center, initially aired on local stations in Lexington, Ky., and Nashville, Tenn. The 30-minute documentary, available for viewing in four segments, features interviews with several [...]

Richard Peek, M.D., laughs at the memory of his introduction to Helicobacter pylori – a twisted sausage-shaped bacterium that takes up residence in the human stomach. He was a medical student at the time – around 1987 – and was following a patient with a bleeding ulcer. The patient had an endoscopy procedure to view [...]

Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer and incredibly difficult to treat successfully once the tumor has spread beyond the skin. But the identification of a key player in a signaling pathway involved in melanoma development may offer hope for new targeted melanoma therapies. Ann Richmond, Ph.D., and colleagues at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center report [...]

On iTunes U, a lecturer predicts that we will one day be routinely giving drugs to computers. When you get sick, someone will load your medical history and your genome sequence (and perhaps other selected data about your biochemical composition) into a simulator. As various drugs are entered, you’ll learn of their predicted effects in [...]

In an economic crisis that has led to some of the highest unemployment rates since the Great Depression, Sergey Ivanov, Ph.D., is very relieved to have found a position at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. Ivanov’s wife had accepted a new position at Vanderbilt, so the couple moved from New York to Nashville in 2009. But Ivanov [...]

Busting myths about cancer clinical trials Using elements of “Jeopardy,” “Saturday Night Live” and the Discovery Channel show “MythBusters,” Vanderbilt cancer survivors and researchers have developed an entertaining program to skewer myths about cancer clinical trials. The educational project, “Mythbusters: Cancer Research in Jeopardy,” was presented recently by Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Research Advocates and members [...]

Karen Munyon, MBA, BSRT, grew up thinking she was going to be a pharmacist; she was a pre-pharmacy major, had worked in a pharmacy, and had relatives in the field. But the year she applied to the pharmacy program, there were only 60 slots available and she was placed on the alternate list. Unsure of [...]