Professional Bio
Matt Alexander, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine divisions of Clinical Pharmacology and Cardiovascular Medicine. He completed undergraduate studies at Duke University and earned his MD and PhD in the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He subsequently joined the Physician Scientist Training Program (Harrison Society) at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) through which he completed an Internal Medicine residency and Cardiovascular Medicine fellowship, including postdoctoral research with Dr. Meena Madhur. As a physician-scientist, Dr. Alexander sees patients as a general cardiologist with a particular focus on advanced hypertension. His laboratory pursues basic/translational research to understand the role of counter-regulatory immune mechanisms in the pathogenesis of hypertension, including regulatory and exhausted T cells, with the goal of therapeutically targeting these cells as novel therapies. Ongoing projects include determining roles of immune checkpoints and regulatory T cell plasticity in hypertension as well as mechanisms by which the autoimmune disease psoriasis enhances hypertension severity and related end-organ damage. Dr. Alexander performs cutting edge basic and translational research integrating vascular biology and immunology using a variety of approaches, including molecular biology, physiology, highly dimensional single cell analysis, and human genetics.
Relevant Links
Publications
Education
MD - University of Virginia, 2013
Fellowship - Post Doc Research - Vanderbilt University, 2019
Contact
Email
Kimryn.Rathmell@Vumc.Org
Address
777 Preston Research Building
2220 Pierce Ave
Nashville, TN 37232-6307