Research Centers
- Autonomic Dysfunction Center: The Center conducts clinical research studies to better understand the pathophysiology of the autonomic nervous system and its role in autonomic dysfunction while seeking to discover new therapies to help optimize treatment of known autonomic disorders.
- Personalized Medicine: A world leader in personalized medicine, Vanderbilt is home to multiple programs, research centers and resources dedicated to improving individual patient outcomes. This website is a hub to explore personalized medicine research across the enterprise.
- Vanderbilt Center for Arrhythmia Research and Therapeutics: An interdisciplinary center that focuses on understanding mechanisms predisposing to abnormal heart rhythms, and uses this information for optimal personalized patient care.
- Vanderbilt Center for Bone Biology: A cross-disciplinary center that studies basic and translational aspects of bone development, bone loss, fracture repair and more. Faculty from the Division of Genetic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology and departments of Pediatrics, Orthopedic Surgery and Biomedical Engineering participate in this center.
- Vanderbilt Center for Digital Genomic Medicine: The Center for Digital Genomic Medicine seeks to advance medicine by building integrated data resources and developing novel methodologies to directly inform and improve diagnostics and treatment decisions. Watch the video below to learn more about this center.
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute: The mission of the VGI is to train the next generation of scientific leaders and promote better diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of human disease through genome interrogation and molecular discovery of the expressed genome.
- Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology: An interdisciplinary institute within the Vanderbilt School of Medicine Basic Sciences, leaders in drug discovery research, education, and training.
Watch the video to learn more about the Center for Digital Genomic Medicine with Dr. Douglas Ruderfer
Research Labs
- Aldrich Lab: A multidisciplinary team led by Dr. Melinda Aldrich, whose goal is to improve the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer for all populations.
- Barricarte Lab: An immunogenetics lab, working on infectious diseases and primary immunodeficiencies, led by Dr. Ruben Martinez-Barricarte.
- Below Lab: Bringing compuataion to unmet needs in human genomics
- Biaggioni Lab: Led by the Director of the Vanderbilt Autonomic Dysfunction Center, this lab studies mechanisms underlying dysregulation of autonomic function in humans.
- Bick Lab: Within the Division of Genetic Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the Bick Lab is advancing genomics research, expanding the limits of our understanding of Clonal Hematopoiesis of Indeterminate Potential (CHIP)
A. Dikalova Lab: Studies the role of mitochondrial proteins including the Sirtuins in modulating mitochondrial function. Dr. Anna Dikalova uses unique mouse models to delete sirtuins in target tissues to study how these affect target organ function in hypertension.
S. Dikalov Lab: Studies how reactive oxygen species are generated in mammalian cells and their role in pathophysiological conditions like hypertension. Dr. Sergey Dikalov's group has defined novel perturbations of mitochondrial function in diseases like hypertension, atherosclerosis and diabetes.
A. Gamboa Lab: Focuses on the study of the interactions between the autonomic nervous system and the mechanisms involved in the regulation of blood pressure, blood flow, and insulin sensitivity in obesity-associated hypertension.
- Gamazon Lab: This lab, led by Dr. Eric Gamazon, develops and applies genomic and computational methods to investigate the genetic architecture of complex traits, including disease risk and drug response.
- Glazer Lab: Studies mutations that cause arrhythmia disorders and other diseases associated with ion channels. We use high-throughput in vitro methods and large cohort datasets to discover new disease-associated mutations.
Harrison Lab: Studies how the immune system and chronic inflammation are engaged in cardiovascular diseases. This group has defined novel links between oxidative injury and immune activation in hypertension and related conditions.
Kirabo Lab: Dr. Kirabo's lab is working to define mechanisms that contribute to inflammation and autoimmunity in cardiovascular disease, with a particular focus on immune mechanisms of excess dietary salt-induced cardiovascular and kidney disease, and how this is modulated by the gut microbiota and viral infections including HIV/AIDS.
Spotlight on the Kirabo Lab
Annet Kirabo, PhD, and her team studied the effects of salt intake on blood pressure, and found that patients who eat in excess of the American Heart Association's recommendation of one teaspoon of salt per day have altered gut microbiota, which leads to high blood pressure and inflammation.
- Knapik Lab: Led by Dr. Ela Knapik, this research lab seeks to understand mechanisms of protein transport and secretion through modeling of human diseases
- Knollmann Lab: Investigates molecular arrhythmia mechanisms involving alterations in the functioning of ion channels, myofilaments and calcium release channels. His lab is developing and testing new anti-arrhythmic therapies in human induced pluripotent stem cell models, in animal models and in humans.
- Kroncke Lab: Aims to accurately predict the meaning of genetic variants to the individuals who carry them. Dr. Kroncke's approach is to collect as much phenotype information, at high and low resolution, as is feasible for the largest number of variants and then leverage high-throughput experimental and computational methods to fill in the details for yet uncharacterized variants.
- Milne Lab: Studies the metabolism of oxidized lipid mediators in health and human disease. The lab has a particular interest in the use of oxidized lipid mediator metabolites as biomarkers of their endogenous production.
- Murray Lab: Investigates the molecular determinants of the substrate for atrial fibrillation, the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia. Current efforts are focused on targeting reactive lipid dicarbonyls generated by oxidative stress that mediate a major component of injury in this setting.
- Rendina-Ruedy Lab: Focused on developing a comprehensive understanding of how metabolic pathways impact bone health. The lab has ongoing projects aimed at understanding how bone cells, and cells within the bone marrow niche, store, mobilize, and utilize various metabolic substrates.
- Roden Lab: Investigates how genomic variation affects variability in disease susceptibility and response to drug treatment. The Roden Lab is particularly interested in the genomics of abnormal heart rhythms.
- Ruderfer Lab: A research group at the intersection of genomics, biomedical informatics and psychiatry, led by Dr. Douglas Ruderfer.
- Santisteban Lab: Investigates hypertension as a risk factor for cognitive impairment, utilizing mouse models of hypertension to assess the mechanisms leading to cognitive decline.
- Shibao Lab: Focuses on the pathophysiology and treatment of autonomic disorders and parasympathetic regulation of inflammation and endothelial dysfunction.
- Southard-Smith Lab: A research group focused on understanding how discrete disease genes work individually and in combination with other genes in the genetic background to produce deficits of the peripheral nervous system, led by Dr. Michelle Southard-Smith
- Stein Lab: Dr. Stein uses translational approaches to define the mechanisms underlying interindividual variability in drug response and toxicity. His research has defined genetic variants that underlie untoward responses to drugs and that predispose to severity of illnesses like tuberculosis, sepsis and autoimmunity.