Department: Office of Research


Research Fellowships Help Graduate Students Turn Promising Ideas Into Discovery

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Daniel Nnamani and Mona Kazemi Sabzvar

In the lab, promising results often lead to more questions than a researcher has the resources to answer. For Mona Kazemi Sabzvar, a doctoral student at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences, preliminary findings in her research on blood cancer pointed toward an additional avenue worth exploring. She had ideas for the experiments that could… Read More


After 25 Years of Searching, Dystonia Researcher Looks for Answers in Blood

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Dr. Jianfeng Xiao portrait

Twenty-five years ago, Jianfeng Xiao, MD, PhD, was a postdoctoral researcher in Bonn, Germany, when an unexpected phone call changed the direction of his career. A neurologist at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences in Memphis had read one of Dr. Xiao’s papers and wanted to talk to him about a very unusual rat. “He… Read More


Looking Earlier: Searching for the First Signs of Diabetes Risk in Children

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Dr. Shannon Rose

By the time a child’s blood sugar begins to rise, the story of Type 2 diabetes may have been unfolding for years. Insulin resistance is already underway. Inflammation has taken hold. The body is struggling to keep blood sugar in check. But what if there was a warning sign even earlier, before any of that… Read More


The Double-Edged Sword of a Common Chemotherapy Drug: $1 Million Grant Seeks Solutions to Brain Damage

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Dr. Mohammad Moshahid Khan headshot

Arsenic trioxide presents an interesting medical paradox: It is a highly toxic chemical that can cause serious harm to the brain, yet it is also an essential medicine used to treat a rare form of blood cancer. When used in hospitals to treat acute promyelocytic leukemia, arsenic trioxide can be lifesaving. Outside medical treatment, however,… Read More


Where Academic Healthcare Meets AI

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Dr. Jessica Snowden portrait

There is a version of the artificial intelligence story that everyone has heard by now: the billion-dollar campuses, the coastal cities competing for the next great tech company. Memphis, Tennessee, does not fit that story. And that, it turns out, may be precisely the point. The University of Tennessee Health Sciences’ achievement of R1 research… Read More


UT Health Sciences Lands First K12 Training Grant to Build Pipeline for Cancer Researchers

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Photo of a researcher in a cancer lab.

The National Cancer Institute has awarded the University of Tennessee Health Sciences a $2.65 million K12 grant to launch a Career Development Program in Clinical Oncology, a five-year initiative that will train early-career physicians to become independent clinical cancer researchers. It is the first K12 training grant ever awarded to a UT System institution, built… Read More


What Is It Eating? A Researcher’s Six-Year Chase to Understand How a Deadly Mold Survives Inside Human Lungs

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Portrait of Dr. Jarrod Fortwendel sitting in the lab

Every day, we breathe in spores of Aspergillus fumigatus without a second thought. The mold is everywhere — in soil, in compost, in the air of nearly every room we enter. For most people, the immune system clears it out before it ever becomes a problem. But for someone with a weakened immune system, those… Read More


The Long Way Around: How Dr. James Parrett Became UTRF Memphis’s New Vice President

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“My background is a little atypical of how people do things,” says James Parrett, PharmD, JD, and it’s hard to argue. Chemist, patent litigator, pharmacist, technology transfer manager: Dr. Parrett has worn all four hats on his way to a fifth. This July, he became vice president of the University of Tennessee Research Foundation’s Memphis… Read More