About Us

My research focuses on the mechanisms of peripheral artery disease development as well as better treatment strategies for patients with peripheral artery disease.

Mentor: Ravi Shah

I am interested in using behavioral interventions to increase participation in cardiac rehabilitation.

My research focuses on mechanisms of pulmonary vascular disease and right ventricular failure.

My research is focused on developing quantitative imaging based biomarkers that can be used for to predict future disease risk or to support clinical decision making in populations or for personalized medicine applications.

I am a translational researcher leveraging my expertise in cohort development, clinical cardiology, cardiovascular epidemiology, and acute myocardial infarction (MI) to better understand, diagnose, and predict the full spectrum of myocardial injury events, specifically subtypes of MI. 

Mentor: Deepak Gupta

My research focuses on the genetics of cardiometabolic diseases, with a particular focus on functional genomics and clinical translation. I am particularly interested in the interactions between genetic and environmental factors in disease development, and in the use of evoked phenotypes as a tool for genomic discovery.

My research focuses on the intersections between HIV infection, substance use, immune function, and cardiovascular disease outcomes.

My clinical research program focuses on 1) mechanisms for the development of and outcomes in hypertension and related sequelae, particularly heart failure, 2) the natriuretic peptide system, and 3) determinants of racial differences in susceptibility to cardiovascular disease.

My areas of interest are predictive modeling and model validation, missing data, diagnostic and prognostic research, health services research, cohort studies, clinical trials, cardiovascular disease, reproducible research, and Bayesian methods.

My research is focused on calcific aortic stenosis, including clinical and translation studies related to biomarker discovery, risk prediction, and elucidating pathophysiology to identify adjunctive interventions to improve patient-centered outcomes.

My research focuses on the role of metabolic traits and lifestyle and socioeconomic characteristics in relation to cardiovascular disease and chronic kidney disease, as well as breast and kidney cancers, including their interactions with genetic factors and their contributions to racial disparity.

My research focuses on developing approaches that integrate genetic data sources including electronic health record systems and large epidemiological studies, to identify genetically-modulated risk factors and biomarkers that impact health and disease.

I am an Associate Professor in the Division of Cardiology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. My clinical research is currently focused on the development of innovative strategies for lowering cardiovascular risk and improving patient outcomes in high-risk primary and secondary prevention settings.

My focus is in lung cancer screening, characterization of pulmonary nodules, coronary artery disease, and coronary artery anomalies. 

I am a cardiac electrophysiologist and physician scientist with a clinical/translational research program focused on improving therapies for patients with atrial fibrillation and inherited arrhythmia syndromes.

I provide input on formulation of hypotheses, context within related areas of research,  definition of data fields for trial design, and interpretation of results in the context of contemporary clinical and research priorities related to diagnosis, presentation, and management in early and late stages of cardiomyopathy and heart failure.

I am an Internal Medicine physician scientist, Associate Professor of Medicine, and founding director of a new center at Vanderbilt focusing on comparative effectiveness research for tobacco control and disease risk reduction. Key aims of the center include using personalized approaches to guide choice of cessation therapy, investigating mechanisms of lapse and relapse in real time, and effectively controlling tobacco disease-related burden in clinical populations. 

My research program is directed toward precision medicine for cardiovascular disease, with a special interest in arrhythmic and cardiomyopathic phenotypes.  The overarching goal of my lab is to understand how patient-specific features, including clinical and genetic factors, contribute to variable disease susceptibility and therapeutic response, and then translate this knowledge to patient-centered, precision care.

My research focuses on the relationship between gonadal aging and/or artificial gonadal hormone manipulation and cardiometabolic disease.  I am especially interested in how the loss of gonadal hormones contributes to the development of atherosclerosis and diabetes.

I am a Clinical Trials Manager for the division of cardiovascular medicine and Vanderbilt Center for Translational and Clinical Cardiovascular Research (VTRACC) at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.  I am currently working on clinical and translational research predominantly focused on the role of the natriuretic peptide system on cardiovascular health, heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, and cardiovascular disease prevention.  

Emily is the Research Program Manager of the V-CREATE center, and the Program Director of the Vanderbilt Scholars in HIV and Heart, Lung, Blood and Sleep Research (V-SCHoLARS) K12 training program. Emily manages a number of projects focusing on studies utilizing cohort data to examine HIV and cardiovascular disease risk. 

I have served as a leading biostatistician and methodologist in multiple NIH and CDC funded randomized clinical trials. My research areas of research include statistical consulting and collaboration, statistical computing, clinical trials, R, Longitudinal data analysis.

My interests include survival analysis, categorical data analysis, longitudinal data analysis and prediction models

Suman’s research interest include investigating the impact of standard risk factors, genetic variants, and biomarkers in understanding the relationship between HIV infection and the risk of cardiovascular disease; methodological and analytical considerations in risk prediction research.

 My work involves non-invasive imaging of cardiac, vascular and adipose tissues and risk factors cardiovascular disease.

I develop protocols and conduct analyses on MR and CT images of cardiac, vascular, adipose and skeletal tissues from study cohorts with burden of cardio vascular disease, diabetes, and atherosclerosis.

Grace is a Clinical/Translational Research Coordinator with the V-CREATE team. Grace works to support a multitude of projects, with a focus on studies examining HIV status and cardiovascular risk.

I am a Clinical and Translational Research Coordinator II for the Vanderbilt Center for Translational and Clinical Cardiovascular Research (VTRACC). I work on translational vascular research studies. In particular, our studies focus on the genetics of cardiometabolic diseases, with a particular focus on functional genomics and clinical translation. Currently, we are also investigating the effects of PDE5 inhibition in obese adults, as well as Probing the determinants of α-aminoadipic acid (2-AAA) and understanding the relationship to diabetes

Selected Publications
Persaud, A., Desine, S., Blizinsky, K., Bonham, V.L. A CRISPR focus on attitudes and beliefs toward somatic genome editing from stakeholders within the sickle cell disease community. 2018. Genetics in Medicine. Volume 8:1726-1734. PMID: 30581191

Hollister, B.M., Gatter, M., Abdallah, K., Armsby, A., Buscetta, A., Byeon, J., Cooper, K., Desine, S., Persaud, A., Ormond, Kelly, Bonham, V.L. Perspectives of sickle cell disease stakeholders on heritable genome editing. 2019. The CRISPR Journal. Volume 6:441-449. PMID: 31742431

Desine, S., Hollister, B.M., Persaud, A., Abdallah, K., Hull, S., Bonham, V.L. The Meaning of Informed Consent: Genome Editing Clinical Trials for Sickle Cell Disease. 2020. American Journal of Bioethics: Empirical. 11(4):195-207. PMID: 33044907 

Desine, S., Eskin, L., Bonham, V.L., Koehly, L.M., Social Support Networks of Adults with Sickle Cell Disease. 2021. Journal of Genetic Counseling. PMID: 33847032
Conn, C., Creary, M., Bonham, V.L., Desine, S., Resilience of Adults Living with Sickle Cell Disease. 2022. Adversity and Resilience (submitted)
 

Megan Stewart is a Lead Administrative Assistant supporting Drs. Matthew Freiberg, Hilary Tindle and Jeff Carr. A native Nashvillian, she studied at Nashville State Community College. She has extensive experience with all administrative tasks, including scheduling and correspondence. Having held positions in the research and medical fields, Megan is able to tailor her skills to meet the needs of those she supports.