Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center

Chin Chiang, Ph.D., professor of Cell and Developmental Biology and member of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center faculty, has been awarded a $200,000 grant to study an aggressive form of childhood cancer. The two-year Innovation Award from Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) will help fund Chiang’s research on rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), the most common soft tissue malignancy [...]

Earn up to 5.5 continuing education credits! Program Overview: This congress is a full-day educational program designed to provide an in-depth analysis of the evidence and clinical decision-making that led to the development of the NCCN Guidelines® for Bladder, Kidney, and Prostate Cancers. Participants will learn how to implement the NCCN Guidelines recommendations into their [...]

It’s been two years since Joan Meredith’s stem cell transplant for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Although she is now “100 percent donor” and her new immune system appears to be functioning well, she remains vigilant against the health complications related to her transplant – like infections, for example. “I hated wearing the mask because I [...]

Vanderbilt’s Marta Hernanz-Schulman, M.D., has been named to the Board of Chancellors of the American College of Radiology (ACR) as chair of the Pediatric Commission. Hernanz-Schulman, professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences and professor of Pediatrics, currently serves as medical director of Diagnostic Imaging at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. The American [...]

Members of the Vanderbilt community have spent the past week sharing remembrances of a Nashville businesswoman who made an indelible mark on the Medical Center. Frances Williams Preston, one of the most successful female executives in the music industry and a member of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Board of Overseers, passed away at her Nashville [...]

Mitochondria – cellular structures known as the “power plants” of the cell – are inherited exclusively from the mother. These organelles contain their own DNA (mtDNA), which is highly vulnerable to damage by environmental insults – for example radiation exposure to the ovaries during treatment for childhood cancer. Because such damage could be passed on [...]

Frances Williams Preston, one of the most successful female music executives in the history of the entertainment industry, and a member of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Board of Overseers, died from congestive heart failure at her home in Nashville, surrounded by her family, Wednesday, June 13. She was 83. Mrs. Preston spent most of her [...]

Next generation sequencing (NGS) has dramatically accelerated the discovery of disease-associated genetic variants. Also known as massively parallel sequencing, this technological tour de force can rapidly “read” a sequence of DNA bases (the “letters” in our genomes) in parallel, making genome sequencing feasible in the research lab. Vanderbilt researchers have developed a “catalog” of human [...]

Identifying the cellular origins of medulloblastoma – the most common malignant brain tumor in children – may help focus treatment on cell types responsible for tumor initiation. Previous research has linked Sonic hedgehog signaling in neuronal cell precursors within the developing cerebellum to medulloblastoma. Now, Chin Chiang, Ph.D., and colleagues demonstrate that “turning on” Sonic [...]

A breast cancer patient who has enrolled in two clinical research trials at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center was the only presenter to receive a standing ovation during a recent Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) news briefing at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in Chicago. Jeanette Daniel, 51, a metastatic breast cancer patient, [...]