Kaylon L. Bruner-Tran is an Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.   She is the Co-Director of the Women’s Reproductive Health Research Center.  Currently, she serves as a standing member to the Integrative Clinical Endocrinology and Reproduction study section review committee at NIH.

Dr. Bruner-Tarn received her PhD in reproductive pathology from Vanderbilt University in 1995.  For her post-doctoral training, Dr. Bruner-Tran completed a dual-track program at Thomas Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia which included basic science in molecular endocrinology in the laboratory of Gerald Litwack, PhD and specialized training in gynecologic histopathology with Fred Gorstein, MD.   Following these studies, she returned to Vanderbilt where she established a strong collaborative research program with Dr. Kevin Osteen.  As a member of the Women’s Reproductive Health Research Center at Vanderbilt, she directs the Disease Modeling Core Facility, which is utilized by numerous NIH-sponsored investigators as well as for Industry-sponsored research. In collaboration with Dr. Osteen, she has developed experimental mouse models of endometriosis as well as a model of in utero toxicant exposure which mimics the human endometriosis phenotype.  Studies within her laboratory are focused on the impact of early life toxicant exposures on maintenance of pregnancy, with a particular emphasis on mechanisms leading to preterm birth.  Her laboratory was the first to demonstrate the toxicant exposure history of the father can adversely affect maintenance of pregnancy in his partner.  Current studies are attempting to identify the potential toxicant-associated epigenetic events which may be responsible for the paternal-derived risk of preterm birth.  Finally, additional studies within her laboratory are examining the effectiveness of nutritional modification to reduce the incidence of reproductive failure following early life toxicant exposure.

• Hutson MS, Alexander P, Allwardt V, Aronoff DM, Bruner-Tran KL, Cliffel D, Davidson J, Gough A, Markov D, McCawley L, McKenzie J, McLean J, Osteen K, Pensabene V, Senutovitch NK, Sherrod S, Shotwell M, Taylor L, Tetz L, Tuan R, Vernetti L, Wikswo JP. Organs-on-Chips as Bridges for Predictive Toxicology Applied In Vitro Toxicology. 2016 Jun 15;2(2). 97-102.
• Arosh JA, Lee J, Balasubbramanian D, Stanley JA, Long CR, Meagher MW, Osteen KG, Bruner-Tran KL, Burghardt RC, Starzinski-Powitz A, Banu SK. Molecular and preclinical basis to inhibit PGE2 receptors EP2 and EP4 as a novel nonsteroidal therapy for endometriosis In: PNAS 2015. 2015 Jul 21. Abstract