Luiz Minardi is an Associate Financial Analyst for the VUMC Vaccine Center with a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Luiz brings his passion for finance to support VUMC’s research initiatives aimed at making a positive impact on the world. With his free time, Luiz enjoys being outdoors and watching soccer, and with a deep love for learning, Luiz seeks to further his education in the financial field to strengthen his contributions to the Vaccine Center.

Dr. Thomas received his PhD in Cancer Biology from Wake Forest University in 2004. His dissertation explored how intracellular adapter proteins assemble onto death receptors to propagate the apoptotic signaling cascade. He accepted a postdoctoral training position in the laboratory of Dr Eugene Oltz at Vanderbilt University where he used mouse models to investigate how VDJ recombination and B-cell development are epigenetically regulated by histone methylation. Since 2010 he spent time in academics studying how the oncogenic protein Myc is recruited to target genes and worked in biotechnology where he led efforts do identify HDAC2 inhibitors for treating neurodegenerative disorders, develop genetic based companion diagnostics, and improve blood-based tests to monitor organ health after transplant. In 2023, Lance joined Dr. James Crowe’s lab at Vanderbilt Vaccine Center as an associate basic scientist.

Erica graduated with a degree in Biology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Over the past 14 years she has worked at academic research centers as a research specialist and lab manager. She has managed labs in the US (UPenn, Vanderbilt) as well as Japan (RIKEN). After spending 4 years abroad helping to start a lab in Yokohama, she has returned to the VVC and is transitioning to a new (to her) side of research by joining the Project Management and Finance teams. She is excited to be back in Nashville working alongside researchers and administrators she respects and admires and is looking forward to learning and developing new skills to support the exciting research happening at the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center.

​​​​​​Katherine (Kat) Webb is a graduate student in the Biomedical Engineering department at Vanderbilt University. She graduated from the University of Florida in 2022 with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering. Her undergraduate research examined altered expression of HIV linked proteins in BCG-infected macrophages within the Parker Lab. Katherine’s research interests include infectious diseases, global health, and diagnostics and therapeutics.  

Katherine (Kat) Webb is a graduate student in the Biomedical Engineering department at Vanderbilt University. She graduated from the University of Florida in 2022 with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering. Her undergraduate research examined altered expression of HIV linked proteins in BCG-infected macrophages within the Parker Lab. Katherine’s research interests include infectious diseases, global health, and POC diagnostics and therapeutics.  

James Martinez is a Research Assistant II in iCore at the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center. He completed a B.S. in Cell Biology from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and an M.S. from Lipscomb University. His graduate research at Lipscomb University focused on Necrotizing Enterocolitis and the involvement of the Unfolded Protein Response pathway.

Dr. Ravera received her M.Sc. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Turin, Italy, and her Ph.D. in Physiology from the University of Zurich, Switzerland. During this time, she learned a great deal about the structure and function of membrane proteins to investigate the mechanism, localization, and regulation of phosphate transporters in the kidney. During her post-doctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Gary Rudnick in the Department of Pharmacology at Yale, she gained experience with bacterial transporters and developed skills in the purification and reconstitution of membrane proteins such as LeuT. In 2012, she became a member of the laboratory of Dr. Nancy Carrasco in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Yale to work on the Na+/I- symporter (NIS), a protein of significant physiological and medical relevance. She studied the optimization of a viral vector for gene therapy using NIS as a reporter gene. She characterized NIS's binding, expression, and purification for structural studies and ultimately determined the 3D structure by cryo-EM. 

Lynn joined the Crowe lab in 2022. Previously, she spent sixteen years in the Roden lab at VUMC studying differences in cardiac ion channel expression and function using transgenic mice and cardiomyocytes induced from pluripotent stem cells. Lynn received her bachelor’s degree from Stanford University. 

Gabriel Herndon is an application developer in the VVC.  Gabriel has worked in the film and technology industry.  He uses his creative and technological outlook to create computer and mobile applications to make people’s lives and workflow easier and more efficient.  He is interested in design, machine-learning, and in-depth comprehension of users’ interactions.