News: Featured Story

Pietenpol named chief scientific and strategy officer Jennifer Pietenpol, PhD, director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC), Benjamin F. Byrd Jr. Professor of Oncology and Executive Vice President for Research for Vanderbilt University Medical Center, is stepping down on June 30 from her long-held role as the Cancer Center’s director to focus on a combined leadership […]

If Landon Ryan had been diagnosed with bilateral retinoblastoma 10, 20 or 30 years ago, she might not be here today with nearly perfect vision. Thanks to recent improvements in the treatment for this rare form of cancer that almost exclusively affects children under the age of 5, the diagnosis had the power to change […]

Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) has taken multiple measures since the COVID pandemic began two years ago to protect its patients, study how the disease affects immunocompromised people and provide them with an extra shield against infection. “The pandemic brought unique challenges and required quick changes in how we provided care,” said Laura Goff, MD, executive […]

Courtni Hammers remembers feeling sicker than she’d ever been in her life, racked with fever and overwhelmed with flu-like body pain. Having these symptoms in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic magnified her anxiety. Hammers, then a 25-year-old Navy hospital corpsman, picked up her phone and called Kelsey Bauman, a 29-year-old dental hygienist living more […]

When Ryan Merrell, MD, was in his third year of medical school at the University of Alabama, he hadn’t quite decided what specialty he would choose. Then life dealt a heavy blow, nudging him toward the field of neuro-oncology. His father, Jim, who had recently retired from Boeing in Huntsville, Alabama, was diagnosed with glioblastoma […]

Lianfei Xu and her husband were just weeks away from traveling to their native China to visit family in the fall of 2014 when she learned that her dad hadn’t been feeling well and was going into the hospital to have some tests. “We were planning to visit my husband’s family on the other side […]

Lung cancer and colorectal cancer are the leading causes of cancer deaths in the United States, and even though more Americans now qualify at younger ages for early-detection screenings, many are missing out. The expansion of screening guidelines occurred simultaneously with the ongoing COVID pandemic when people are delaying these potentially life-saving procedures. Cheryl Livingston […]

Consuelo Wilkins, MD, MSCI, Senior Vice President for Health Equity and Inclusive Excellence for Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) and Senior Associate Dean for Health Equity and Inclusive Excellence for Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, always knew she wanted to be a physician. Born and raised in the Mississippi Delta, she was drawn to the […]

William J. “Bill” Blot, PhD, was already a well-known cancer epidemiologist — one who tracks the incidence and distribution of malignancies and factors that cause them — when he agreed to help Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) grow its own epidemiology program in 1999. His move to Nashville was pivotal, for here, in collaboration with Vanderbilt […]

When Sonia Richard was diagnosed with stage 3c colorectal cancer at age 30, she felt lost. “I didn’t know anyone my age who had dealt with cancer,” Richard said. The Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Young Adult Program is a new initiative to help people diagnosed in the prime of their lives. It’s designed for patients ages […]