Research

TV infomercials offer a world of potential solutions for back pain, but most of them have at least one of three problems — they’re unproven, unworkable or just plain unattractive. A team of Vanderbilt University engineers is changing that with a design that combines the science of biomechanics and advances… Read More

Michael Miga has been appointed to serve a four-year term on the Bioengineering, Technology, and Surgical Sciences Study Section of the National Institutes of Health Center for Scientific Review beginning July 1, 2017. Michael Miga Miga is the Harvie Branscomb Professor at Vanderbilt, and professor of biomedical engineering, radiology and… Read More

Students from the Whites Creek High School’s Academy of Alternative Energy, Sustainability and Logistics on a recent field trip to the Love Circle energy park. On Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2017, the renewable energy pilot facility atop Nashville’s Love Circle will complete five… Read More

Illustration of the triangular pattern formed by the two-dimensional material chalcogenide that allows the creation of dual-function devices. (Yu-Yang Zhang / Chinese Academy of Sciences) Two-dimensional materials that can multitask. That is the result of a new process that naturally produces patterned monolayers that can act as a base… Read More

Powerful molecules can hitch rides on a plentiful human protein and signal tumors to self-destruct, a team of Vanderbilt University engineers found. Their research gives oncologists a better shot at overcoming the problems of drug resistance, toxicity to patients and a host of other barriers to consistently achieving successful gene… Read More

Imagine slipping into a jacket, shirt or skirt that powers your cell phone, fitness tracker and other personal electronic devices as you walk, wave and even when you are sitting down. A new, ultrathin energy harvesting system developed at Vanderbilt University’s Nanomaterials and Energy Devices… Read More

Build and use microscope systems that do not exist commercially to unlock deeper insights in biomedicine. Design and develop a space-based platform to study Earth’s evolving ecology from an elevated vantage point. Create a research hub for development and testing of durable, sustainable infrastructure materials. All big ideas with widespread… Read More

Michael Miga (John Russell / Vanderbilt) The liver is a particularly squishy, slippery organ, prone to shifting both deadly tumors and life-preserving blood vessels by inches between the time they’re discovered on a CT scan and when the patient is lying on an operating room table. Surgeons can swab the exposed liver lightly… Read More

The ICU is no place to get good rest, as anyone who has worked, visited or stayed in one knows. Alarms designed to alert clinicians disrupt patient sleep, adding to their stress and disorientation. The alarms are shrill, frequent and often false. What if an in-ear device could block a… Read More

Building transient electronics is usually about doing something to make them stop working: blast them with light, soak them with acid, dunk them in water. Professor Leon Bellan’s idea is to dissolve them with neglect: Stop applying heat, and they come apart. Using silver nanowires embedded in a polymer that… Read More