James D. West, PhD

James West, PhD, is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary, and Critical Care Medicine in the Department of Medicine, as well as in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He received a doctorate in Physics from the Georgia Institute of Technology before completing a fellowship focusing on developmental genetics at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.

Dr. West has authored more than 150 papers and has had major NIH funding continuously for 20 years. He is on the editorial boards of Pulmonary Circulation and PLoS One, on the Scientific Advisory Board of the American Lung Association and has served both as a standing and ad hoc member of multiple government, foundation, and private grant review panels. His primary research focus has been on diseases of the pulmonary vasculature, primarily idiopathic and heritable pulmonary hypertension. He uses patient data and samples to inform mouse and cell culture experiments, which are then returned to the bedside in multiple clinical trials which have originated from his work, both for lung and heart manifestations of disease.