Spotlight

Dr. Ann Tate is an Assistant Professor in the Vanderbilt University Department of Biological Sciences. Her research focuses on understanding reciprocal ecological and evolutionary feedbacks between hosts and parasites, using a combination of theoretical and empirical approaches to zoom back and forth between the molecular details and the population level processes. Before moving to Vanderbilt Dr. Tate was a USDA NIFA postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Houston, mentored by Tim Cooper. She completed her Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University, and received her B.S. from Rice University.... Click Dr. Tate's photo to continue reading.

Dr. Bohannon completed her PhD at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, TX, where she began her studies into immune function following severe burn injury. After completing her PhD studies in 2011, she joined the Sherwood Lab at UTMB as a postdoctoral fellow. Shortly thereafter, she assisted Dr. Sherwood in relocating his laboratory to the Anesthesiology department at VUMC in 2012, where she completed her postdoctoral training. She joined Anesthesiology faculty in 2015 and now has her own research program aimed at investigating immunomodulatory therapies for the prevention of infection and sepsis in patients with severe burn and other critical injuries... Click Dr. Bohannon's photo to continue reading.

Dr. Wilson received his B.S. in Bioengineering from the Oregon State University Honors College, where he also trained in a number of academic and industrial research labs, including the Oregon Medical Laser Center and Bayer Pharmaceuticals. He went on to pursue his doctoral studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the Department of Surgery at Emory University and the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech. He is now running his own lab as an Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt University.... Click Dr. Wilson's photo to continue reading.

Brent Ferrell received his M.D. from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He joined the Irish lab in 2012 as a Fellow in Vanderbilt’s Tinsley R. Harrison Society physician-scientist training program and became Instructor of Medicine in 2015. In 2017, Brent received NIH/NHLBI K23 HL138291, was promoted, and started his own lab as Assistant Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center..... Click Dr. Ferrell's photo to continue reading.

Ivelin Georgiev received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Duke University. In 2009, he joined the newly formed Structural Bioinformatics Core Section at the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) on the main NIH campus in Bethesda, MD, where he served as a staff scientist and co-head until 2015. Dr. Georgiev is an Associate Director for the Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology and Inflammation. He is also a faculty member at the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center and an Assistant Professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology and of Computer Science at Vanderbilt.... Click Dr. Georgiev's photo to continue reading.

Timothy L. Cover, M.D. is a Professor of Medicine and Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology. Dr. Cover received a B.S. degree in Biology from Muhlenberg College and an M.D. degree from Duke University. Following an Internal Medicine residency at Penn State University, he completed an Infectious Diseases Fellowship at University of Colorado... Click Dr. Cover's photo to continue reading.

Wonder Puryear Drake, M.D. is a Professor of Medicine and Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology. Dr. Drake completed her B.S. at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama and then her M.D. right here at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Drake is interested in exploring the etiology as well as pathogenesis of chronic inflammatory states, particularly sarcoidosis.... Click Dr. Drake's photo to continue reading.

Dr. Serezani completed his PhD at the University of Sao Paulo and the University of Michigan. He also completed his postdoctoral studies at University of Michigan. He was an Assistant Professor at Indiana University School of Medicine and has published more than 50 papers in reputed journals. The NIH and other foundations have funded his laboratory for almost 10 years. The Serezani laboratory aims to develop therapeutic strategies to control systemic (sepsis) and localized infections (skin and lung) in healthy individuals, individuals with immune deficiencies, and those suffering from chronic inflammatory diseases, such as diabetes. They have concentrated much of their efforts in understanding the role of the lipid mediators leukotriene B4 and prostaglandin E2 and their actions on microRNAs, epigenetic changes and phosphatases to modulate immune cells involved in the control of microbial infection in these different contexts..... Click Dr. Serezani's photo to continue reading.

Justin M. Balko, Pharm.D., Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Medicine, Cancer Biology and Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology. He received his Pharm.D. from State University of New York at Buffalo and his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Balko's laboratory is focused on improving treatment outcomes in breast cancer (particularly triple-negative breast cancer) as well as in other solid tumors. To accomplish this, they integrate data from genomic and molecular profiling studies with molecular biology and signal transduction methodologies to translationally identify altered pathways in cancer, the functional consequences of these alterations, and ways to directly target them in patients to improve clinical outcomes and survival. These efforts span in silico (publically available databases), in vitro (cell culture), in vivo (mouse and human clinical studies) and in situ (histology) methods. The lab has a strong interest in the intersection between new immunotherapies and tumor cell signaling pathways.... Click Dr. Balko's photo to continue reading.

Mary Philip, M.D., Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology and an Assistant Professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology. She grew up in Chicago and received her BS in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University and her M.D. and Ph.D. in cancer biology from the University of Chicago. She completed her residency at the University of Chicago and her Hematology/Oncology Fellowship training at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center/University of Washington in Seattle. She then worked at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York to decipher the epigenetic regulation of tumor-specific T cell dysfunction before moving to Nashville... Click Dr. Philip's photo to continue reading.