Professional Bio
Thomas Aune, PhD, is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Rheumatology and Immunology, Department of Medicine, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
He received his bachelor's degree from Southwestern at Memphis, now Rhodes College, in 1973, and PhD from University of Tennessee in 1976. He received postdoctoral training at Stanford University and Washington University in St. Louis, then joined the Washington University faculty in 1981. In 1986, he took the plunge to industry and joined Genentech. In 1988, he joined Bayer to build and head the immunology division.
Dr. Aune joined Vanderbilt University's faculty in 1995 as Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology and Immunology and was promoted to full professor with tenure in 2007. During his time at Vanderbilt, he has led a NIH funded research program spanning several different areas of investigation. His research has focused on the use of functional genomic and epigenetic approaches to understand gene regulation. His interests have ranged from detailed mechanistic studies of the gene that encodes interferon-gamma, a key cytokine produced by cells of the innate and adaptive immune systems, to the use of these approaches to gain new insights into human disease.
In addition, his lab has begun to focus attention on long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and other species of RNAs that do not code for proteins. We have developed computational and analytic pipelines to dissect functions of these newly identified RNA species in biologic systems. This includes study of functions of lncRNAs that are uniformly expressed at very low levels in multiple human autoimmune diseases. More recently, our interests have expanded to include the study of A-to-I editing of endogenous double-stranded Alu RNAs and the role of this process in regulating innate inflammatory responses in both human health and disease.
We were the first to show that loss of A-to-I editing in multiple sclerosis leads to accumulation of Alu double-stranded RNAs triggering host inflammatory responses. We were also the first to show loss of A-to-I editing in severe COVID-19 disease and severe influenza suggesting this process may play an important role in generating the extreme host inflammatory response observed in patients with severe viral disease. We place a major focus on studying induction of host immunostimulatory RNA in response to viral infection.
Relevant Links
Publications
Education
PhD - University of Tennessee Health Science Center, 1976
PhD - University of Memphis, 1976
Fellowship - Stanford University, 1978
Fellowship - Washington University in St. Louis, 1980
Contact
Email
Kimryn.Rathmell@Vumc.Org
Address
777 Preston Research Building
2220 Pierce Ave
Nashville, TN 37232-6307