Research Enterprise Newsletter - September 2008: Faculty News
Wasserman lands MERIT Award
Diabetes researcher David Wasserman, Ph.D., has received a coveted MERIT (Method to Extend Research in Time) award from the National Institutes of Health for his research on metabolism. Less than 5 percent of NIH-funded investigators are selected to receive MERIT awards, which reward consistently high grant performance with up to 10 years of continuous funding without competitive review. The extended grant duration will make it possible to conduct high-risk research with a high scientific impact. With the funding, his group will investigate the mechanisms that control carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the liver and the conditions that cause the liver to accumulate fat, an early sign of type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome.
Crawford & team land $7M grant for genomics research
A team of Vanderbilt Medical Center investigators led by Dana Crawford, Ph.D., an investigator in the Center for Human Genetics Research, has been awarded a four-year, $7 million grant to take the next step in genomics research. The group is one of four in the country that will use existing epidemiology studies to gain a better understanding of how specific genetic variants influence a person's risk for common diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer. The National Human Genome Research Institute is supporting the effort. The Vanderbilt team will study a cohort of patients collected as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Gore gives invited lecture at Gordon Conference
John Gore, Ph.D., gave in invited lecture titled "Aspects of Relaxation and Diffusion in Tissues" at the 2008 Gordon Conference on In vivo Magnetic Resonance, held at Proctor Academy in New Hampshire on July 23.
New secure wireless networks coming in November
VUMC is continuously striving to improve network performance and security. Recently, the Network Services group has been working on a project to secure our wireless networks to insure that we meet HIPAA requirements to secure all patient care data. To accomplish this goal, users are migrating to newly created wireless networks designed to use various means of authentication to prevent unauthorized use of our wireless networks.
Each wireless network is identified by a Service Set Identifier or SSID. Currently the medical center wireless users are using the VUMMIV SSID which provides access to all medical center systems without any means of encryption. Users are being moved to new wireless networks using the PATIENTCARE1, PATIENTCARE2, and PATIENTCARE3 SSIDs. Each of these new wireless SSIDs require special configurations on your wireless devices (iPhone, laptop, BlackBerry, desktops, etc.) Information about making these changes can be found on the NCS website.
At some point in the near future (targeting the end of November), the VUMMIV SSID will be reconfigured to only allow access to the campus/Internet resources and select medical center web sites. You will no longer be allowed to access medical center resources from this SSID unless you use the Secure Access SSL VPN. Please make the necessary changes to your wireless devices as soon as possible to prevent any future disruptions in your wireless service.
Kennedy Center lecture on autism slated for September 22
The Vanderbilt Kennedy center will host a September 22 lecture titled "Early Development in Autism and Implications for Early Detection and Diagnosis: Insights from Prospective Studies of High-Risk Infants." The will be presented by Lonnie Zwaigenbaum, M.Sc., M.D., Associate Professor of Pediatrics; University of Alberta; Co-Director of Autism Research Centre, Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital.
The event will be held at 4:10 p.m. in Room 241 of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center/MRL Building. A reception will follow the lecture. For more information, contact amy.pottier@vanderbilt.edu or 322-8240.
Lonnie Zwaigenbaum's research focuses on early development in autism and related neurodevelopmental disorders. With goals of identifying early behavioral and neurobiological markers of autism, his research group follows infants deemed to be at high risk for autism, namely, those who are siblings of children already diagnosed with an ASD.
Research Magazine now on-line
Vanderbilt Medical Center's research magazine, Lens, is now on-line. Check out the new Web site at lookatscience.org. For more information, contact Lens editor Bill Snyder or lens@vanderbilt.edu.
