2008 News Stories Featuring
VICB Members

Vanderbilt Researchers Excel in Race for Exramural Funds: Federal research funding has never been an entitlement. University scientists compete, often fiercely, for the money they need to conduct their research.The drug discovery program, directed by Jeff Conn, the Lee Limbird Professor of Pharmacology, is an exciting example of the research initiatives being midwifed by the new interdisciplinary centers, in this case, the Institute of Chemical Biology.
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Balser to Serve as Interim Medical School Dean: Jeff Balser, M.D., Ph.D., associate vice chancellor for Research, has been named interim dean of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Balser will assume this new role in mid-May. Dean Steven Gabbe, M.D., will assist in the transition through June 30, then will become senior vice president for Health Sciences and chief executive officer at Ohio State University Medical Center on July 1.
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New Method of Measuring Insulin Promises Diabetes
Treatment Improvements: A new insulin detection method was developed by a team of Vanderbilt researchers headed by Associate Professor of Chemistry David Cliffel and is reported in the February 18 issue of the journal Analytica Chimica Acta. It uses nanotechnology to rapidly measure minute amounts of insulin - a major step toward developing the ability to assess the health of the body’s insulin-producing cells in real time and free diabetics from insulin injections for several years. It works by transplanting insulin-producing cells into the pancreas of diabetics to replace the cells that the disease has disabled or destroyed.
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Vanderbilt One of 15 Universities Selected for Beckman Scholars Program: Vanderbilt University is one of 15 universities selected by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation to participate in a unique program to support undergraduate research. The three-year grant will provide $19,300 apiece to support up to six Vanderbilt undergraduates who are interested in careers in biomedical sciences for two summers and one school year (15 consecutive months) to give them experience in conducting laboratory research. In addition to the six students supported by the foundation, the dean of the College of Arts and Science has put up matching funds to support an additional student, who will be known as the Dean’s Beckman Scholar.
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National Society Honors Blakely: Randy Blakely, Ph.D., director of Vanderbilt's Center for Molecular Neuroscience, has received two major awards this year from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET), one of the oldest and most prestigious science organizations. The 2008 ASPET Julius Axelrod Award, which recognizes outstanding scientific contributions in research and mentoring, and an ASPET-Astellas Award in Translational Pharmacology will be presented to Blakely on April 5 during the Experimental Biology Meeting in San Diego.
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Fascination with Cell Led Researcher to Specialize in Cancer: Jennifer A. Pietenpol, Director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, recently talked with Tennessean health-care business writer Getahn Ward about the center's mission, the move toward individual treatments for cancer and competition among medical centers to acquire devices that can deliver radiation more precisely.
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Sticky Blood Protein Yielding Clues to Autism-Related Deficits: Many children with autism have elevated blood levels of serotonin — a chemical with strong links to mood and anxiety. But what relevance this “hyperserotonemia” has for autism has remained a mystery. New research by Vanderbilt University Medical Center investigators Randy Blakely, Ph.D., and Ana Carneiro, Ph.D., provides a physical basis for this phenomenon, which may have profound implications for the origin of some autism-associated deficits.
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Protein Shines Light on Cancer Treatment Response: A technique that specifically “tags” tumors responding to chemotherapy may offer a new strategy for more quickly determining a cancer treatment's effectiveness. Appearing online ahead of print in Nature Medicine, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center investigators led by Dennis Hallahan, M.D. report the identification of a small protein that specifically recognizes tumors responding to chemotherapy. They show that the protein, when tagged with a light-emitting molecule, can be used to visualize cancer response in mice just two days after starting therapy.
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Guengerich to Hold Chair Honoring Mentor: F. Peter (Fred) Guengerich, Ph.D., professor of Biochemistry and director of the Center in Molecular Toxicology, has been named the first holder of the Harry P. Broquist Chair in Biochemistry. “This chair is long overdue because of the great distinction Fred brings to Vanderbilt,” said Michael Waterman, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Biochemistry. “In my opinion, there is no one on campus who is more deserving of a chair.”
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Study Shows Protein Helps Starve Staph Bacteria: A team of Vanderbilt investigators led by Eric Skaar, Ph.D., assistant professor of Microbiology, has discovered that a protein inside certain immune system cells blocks the growth of “staph” bacteria by sopping up manganese and zinc. The findings, reported Feb. 15 in Science, support the notion that binding metals — to starve bacteria — is a viable therapeutic option for treating localized bacterial infections. New treatment strategies are urgently needed to combat the surging number of infections and deaths caused by antibiotic-resistant forms of Staphylococcus aureus (staph), such as MRSA.
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Conn to Hold Newly Endowed Chair Honoring Limbird: Jeffrey Conn, Ph.D., has been named the first Lee E. Limbird Professor of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.The chair was established recently to honor Limbird, former chair of Pharmacology and former associate vice chancellor for Research at Vanderbilt. “I am delighted to be honored with an endowed chair that bears her name,” said Conn, professor of Pharmacology and director of the Vanderbilt Program in Drug Discovery. “Lee has had a tremendous impact on my career and was a real role model for me when I was a graduate student at Vanderbilt.”
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$4.5 Million Drug Discovery Grant Awarded to Vanderbilt University Medical Center: Vanderbilt University Medical Center has received a $4.5 million grant from Seaside Therapeutics to find potential treatments for fragile X syndrome, the most common inherited form of mental retardation and the most common genetic cause of autism. “It’s a really innovative idea,” said Jeffrey Conn., Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt Program in Drug Discovery and principal investigator of the fragile X project. "If it works, it could be transformative and it could totally change the way people view developmental disorders."
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Pietenpol Chosen to Lead Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center: Jennifer Pietenpol, Ph.D., Ingram Professor of Cancer Research and professor of Biochemistry, has been named director of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. Vanderbilt-Ingram is Tennessee’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. The Comprehensive Cancer Centers form the foundation of cancer research and advancing cancer treatment in the United States. There are 39 such centers, judged through rigorous evaluation to be national leaders in research, treatment, education and outreach. There are only six in the Southeast.
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Study Seeks Alzheimer’s Disease ‘Dimmer Switch’: Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have found a way to “turn up” the activity of a receptor for a neurotransmitter in the brain that plays an important role in Alzheimer's disease. Their finding, reported in the current issue of Nature Chemical Biology, could lead to the development of new drugs that can improve cognitive function and reduce psychotic symptoms in patients with the disease. “Through chemistry, we've now developed compounds that are very specific for a single receptor subtype for the neurotransmitter acetylcholine,” said Jeffrey Conn, Ph.D., the paper's senior author and director of the Vanderbilt Program in Drug Discovery. “After two decades of unsuccessful attempts, people thought it was impossible.”
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Wi-Fi Lets Arkansas Kids Study on Their Commute: For the children of Grapevine, Ark., a rural town 60 miles outside Little Rock, the long, bumpy commute to school on bus No. 46 is anything but ordinary. That's because they are solving math and science problems with teachers and university professors live via the Internet. It's what Vanderbilt University medicine, biochemistry, and pathology Prof. Billy Hudson describes as a virtual schoolhouse on wheels.
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Conn Published in Nature Chemical Biology: An allosteric potentiator of M4 mAChR modulates hippocampal synaptic transmission, by Jeff Conn, Director Translational Neuropharmacology Program, and other Vanderbilt researchers appears in the January 2008 issue of Nature Chemical Biology.
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Vanderbilt Awarded $4.4 Million by the Michael J. Fox Foundation To Develop New Class of Parkinson's Disease Drugs: A drug discovery team at Vanderbilt University Medical Center led by Jeffrey Conn has been awarded a $4.4 million "LEAPS" grant by the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research to jump-start development of a new class of Parkinson's disease drugs.
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Vanderbilt, St. Jude Form Scientist Training Program: The Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have established a joint training grant to help prepare scientists for the multi-disciplinary demands of today's workplace. The St. Jude/Vanderbilt Chemical Biology and Therapeutics Training Grant is open to Vanderbilt students who have completed one year of graduate work in the Department of Chemistry, the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program or the Chemical and Physical Biology Program.
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Previous Articles Highlighting VICB
Members And Their Research

New Technique Measures Molecular Interactions
A new and deceptively simple technique has been developed by chemists at Vanderbilt that can measure the interactions between free-floating, unlabeled biological molecules including proteins, sugars, antibodies, DNA and RNA. “Pharmaceuticals depend on reactions between proteins and small molecules or between pairs of proteins or between interactions between RNA and DNA or pairs of DNA molecules,” said Darryl Bornhop, Ph.D., professor of Chemistry, who headed the 12-year development process. “So the ability to measure how that happens is very advantageous.”
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Creating Life in the Laboratory
Scientists are aiming to craft a "minimal genome"--the smallest group of genes an organism needs to survive and function--and insert it into an empty cell. Anthony Forster, assistant professor of pharmacology, is quoted.
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Why Proteins Contain Proline
A new study published by Anthony Forster and colleagues, "Specificity of Translation for N-Alkyl Amino Acids," was published online on August 25 by the top chemistry journal, Journal of the American Chemical Society.
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Vitamin E Helps Heart Only in High Doses
Research has found that vitamin E, despite being an antioxidant, does not provide any help in the prevention of heart attacks. L. Jackson Roberts II and Jason Morrow are quoted.
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Molecular Mechanisms Of A Biological Clock
After finding three proteins in blue-green algae that develop a 24-hour cycle, a new study was done to find out more about biological clocks. Carl Johnson, professor of biological sciences, heads the study which is published in PLoS Biology.
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Molecular Ties That Bind Provide Cancer Clues
Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have identified a molecular mechanism at the hub of numerous cell behaviors — and possibly at the root of metastasis. In the Dec. 1 issue of the journal Cell, Albert Reynolds, Ph.D., and colleagues identify a protein at the center of it all, p120-catenin, and describe the mechanism it uses to coordinate cell growth, motility and adhesion.
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VUMC Researchers Visualize Crucial Molecular ‘Switch’
Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers have solved an elusive puzzle in the activation of G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling pathways — one of the most physiologically and medically important cell signaling pathways. In the September issue of Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, Heidi Hamm, Ph.D., and colleagues provide some of the first evidence of the protein shape change that initiates the cellular response to GPCR activation. This new model could inform the development of more specific and safer drugs.
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Tricking The Mosquito's Nose: A Grand Challenge To Combat Malaria
Using grant money from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Larry Zwiebel is applying knowledge about how the malaria-bearing mosquito’s olfactory system works at the molecular level in order to identify chemical compounds that act as “super-repellants” and “super-attractants.”

Where Are The New Drugs?
Last year only 23 truly new drugs, called “new molecular entities,” were approved in the United States. That’s less than half of the number approved in 1996, even though annual research-and-development spending by the pharmaceutical industry more than doubled – to nearly $40 billion – during the same eight-year period.

Drug Discovery In The 21st Century
Recent years have seen a steady decline in the number of new drugs approved for clinical use, and many of the recent approvals represent subtle changes to existing medications, providing incremental rather than fundamental advances in therapeutic strategies. The decrease in introduction of fundamentally new drugs into clinical practice during a time of increased knowledge and increased research spending stems in part from a fundamental shift in the basic paradigms used for drug discovery.

Nanotechnology System Faster, More Sensitive In Detecting RSV
A chemist and a physician who specializes in infectious childhood diseases have joined forces to create an early detection method for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the most common cause of hospitalization among children under age 5.

Thinking Outside The Cell
While most researchers plumb the depths of the cell to find drug targets for modern day ailments, Billy Hudson, Ph.D, advances into the great expanse beyond the cells’ margins to uncover drug targets hidden in this extracellular netherworld. All cells exist in a sea of amorphous protein called the extracellular matrix. Composed primarily of insoluble collagens and proteoglycans, the matrix is more than just filler. It shapes tissues and supports and influences a multitude of cellular processes.