‘news’
MEDLab’s perennial engineering class for college-bound girls earns praise
Feb. 28, 2023—A hands-on interactive class designed by graduate students in the Medical Engineering and Discovery Lab (MEDLab) for high school students drew enthusiastic reviews from a Nashville college-preparatory school group. Sessions included introduction to engineering and STEM, computer aided design, robotics and coding, bioinspired design, and a civil engineering module on structure design. The three-week class, Structures,...
Nanoengineering may hold the key to developing more effective, safer treatments for a deadly childhood cancer
Sep. 15, 2022—Neuroblastoma is one of the most common—and lethal—forms of childhood cancer, accounting for 15 percent of pediatric cancer deaths each year. (Despite the name, neuroblastoma is not a form of brain cancer; it typically consists of tumors found in the abdomen, chest, neck, pelvis and bones.) Currently, children with neuroblastoma are treated with aggressive forms...
Vanderbilt researcher receives nearly $2.7 million in NSF and NIH funding to explore how augmented reality can ease loneliness in older adults
Sep. 12, 2022—As the population of older adults continues to boom across the U.S., Vanderbilt researcher Nilanjan Sarkar is partnering with Lorraine Mion of the Ohio State University and two Middle Tennessee long-term care (LTC) facilities to investigate how augmented reality technologies can ease loneliness among residents. Sarkar, the David K. Wilson Professor of Engineering and a...
High blood pressure may accelerate bone aging according to new study led by Vanderbilt biomedical engineering graduate student
Sep. 7, 2022—When high blood pressure was induced in young mice, they had bone loss and osteoporosis-related bone damage comparable to older mice, according to new research presented today at the American Heart Association’s Hypertension Scientific Sessions 2022 conference, held Sept. 7-10, 2022, in San Diego. The meeting is the premier scientific exchange focused on recent advances...
Vanderbilt engineering professor to use $3 million grant to develop technology to help cancer patients better fight disease
Sep. 6, 2022—John Wilson, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Vanderbilt University, has received a $3 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to develop technology that seeks to boost a person’s immune system to better fight cancer. Wilson is the Principal Investigator of the five-year grant. He specializes in the study of cancer immunotherapy...
Vanderbilt research shows how a gel that “melts” at cold temperatures can be used to start chemical reactions
Aug. 29, 2022—A new study by Vanderbilt researchers demonstrates the ability to initiate chemical reactions by cooling materials instead of heating them— a counterintuitive process that could open new vistas for applications ranging from monitoring shipping conditions to developing smart clothing that guards against dangerously low temperatures. The paper, published in August by the journal RSC Advances,...
Vanderbilt professor to use portion of $2.3 million grant on robot technology to help patients avoid invasive colectomies
Aug. 25, 2022—Robert J. Webster III, Richard A. Schroeder Professor of Mechanical Engineering and associate professor of medicine and urology at Vanderbilt University, is part of a collaborative team that has received a more than $2.3 million grant to further develop technology that seeks to prevent patients from having invasive colectomies by using steerable robot-like instruments. Under his...
Artificial intelligence researchers win international “social good” award for tool designed to optimize childhood vaccinations in Nigeria
Jul. 29, 2022—A team of Vanderbilt computer scientists, working in collaboration with Google Research and a global aid organization, HelpMum, received top honors in the “social good” category for a paper describing a new tool designed to optimize childhood health and wellness in Nigeria at the 2022 International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI). Institute for Software...