VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE BASIC SCIENCES

BOARD OF VISITORS

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Table of Contents

Agenda....................................................................2 Directions/Logistics..............................................4

Board Member Profiles........................................5

Basic Sciences Leadership Profiles....................12

Basic Sciences Department Chairs...................15

Development & Alumni Relations Staff...........24 Bylaws...................................................................26

Recent Basic Scieinces News Articles...............29

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Agenda November 29th, 2018 6:30 p.m. Opening reception, dinner Henrietta Red, 1200 4th Avenue N, Nashville, TN

November 30th, 2018

Business Meeting, AM Briefing Sessions

7:45 a.m. Light breakfast Medical Research Building III, Room U1202 Vanderbilt campus, Nashville, TN

8:15 a.m. Start of business meeting, call to order and introductions, Dean Larry Marnett Remain in conference room

8:30 a.m. Dean’s state of the school address, Dean Larry Marnett “Vision for Biomedical Research at Vanderbilt”

9:15 a.m. Briefing on Vanderbilt University, Chair, Board of Trust, Bruce Evans

9:45 a.m. Faculty research showcase, briefing for board members, Dean Larry Marnett

Erin Calipari, Pharmacology, “Defining the Neural Signatures of Drug Addiction”

Charles Sanders, Biochemistry, “A Basic Sciences Approach to Personalized Medicine”

Carrie Jones, Pharmacology, “Development of M5 Muscarinic Acetylcholine Receptor Negative Allosteric Modulators for the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder”

William Tansey, Cell and Developmental Biology, “Targeting MYC”

10:45 a.m. Networking break

11:00 a.m. Tour of facilities, laboratories with doctoral student tour guides

11:45 a.m. Graduate student/postdoc research showcase and mentoring sessions Medical Research Building III, Lobby

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Business Meeting Continued, PM Working Sessions

12:45 p.m. Working lunch, report out assessment of VBS’s capabilities, Board of Visitors Members Medical Research Building III, Room U1202 1:30 p.m. Networking break

1:45 p.m. Speed-advising session with academic leadership of school

2:30 p.m. Networking break

3:15 p.m. Consultation with full board, “Experts’ Advice on Positioning of VBS,” Dean Larry Marnett

1. What makes Vanderbilt and the Basic Sciences unique? 2. What is most intriguing and exciting about the School? How do we tell that story?

3. Ideas on marketing, communication and making connections with industry?

4:00 p.m. Closing session: Report out from board members on action items, Dean Larry Marnett

4:30 p.m. Meeting adjourns

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Directions/LogisticsHotelThe block of rooms for BoV members is at the Kimpton Aertson. It is located at 2021 Broadway, at the inter-sections of 21st and Broadway, across from the Vanderbilt Law School. Parking is in their garage.

DinnerHenriette Red is a seafood and oyster restaurant (with several non-seafood items) in the Germantown neighborhood. It is located at 1200 Fourth Avenue, North, at the corner of Madison Street. We have a pri-vate dining room reserved for the Board of Visitors.

Meeting LocationWe will be convening on the Vanderbilt campus, in the Medical Research Building III. That is a high-rise building that borders 21st Street and is directly across from the University School of Nashville. It is bor-dered on one side by Medical Center North and the other by the Nursing School building. Access is avail-able through the main loading dock (to make finding it simple for everyone), and a student will be there to guide you in to the conference rooms. From the hotel and parking garage, you will be crossing 21st at Scarritt Place (by the CVS Pharmacy), then walking South toward the medical campus. See map below.

ParkingParking spots will be reserved for BoV members at the Wesley Place Garage, which is off of 21st and down Scarritt Place (2043 Scarritt Place is the address for your GPS). As you enter the garage, go to the 2nd level, where spots are being held. A student will welcome you.

Ground TransportationFor everyone staying at the hotel, we will touch base with you as to whether you’d like to have shuttle service from the hotel to: a) the restaurants on Thursday night; b) the meeting room (MRBIII) on Friday morning; and c) the airport after the meeting on Friday.

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Board Member Profiles

Laurent Audoly, PhD, is the President and CEO of Kymera Therapeu-tics located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Laurent joined Kymera from Pierre Fabre, where he was the Global Head of R&D and a managing partner at the PF fund for innovation. Laurent started his drug development career at Pfizer, where he led multiple discovery efforts in inflammation and immu-nology contributing to the identification of Xeljanz®. Subsequently, he held various strategic, business, leadership and operational roles at MedImmune, Merck, and Pieris, building global collaborations and therapeutic pipeline val-ue across oncology, autoimmunity, respiratory, neuropsychiatry, dermatology, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, contributing to the launch of multiple products currently on the market. He earned his PhD in Pharmacology from Vanderbilt University and was an American Heart Association postdoctoral fellow at Duke University. Dr. Laurent is a direct contributor on more than 70 peer-reviewed publications and patents. He also serves as a board member and advisor for multiple healthcare organizations worldwide to help accelerate

the discovery and advancement of novel therapies for patients and their families.

David L. Black, PhD, is currently a Clinical Associate Professor with appointments in Pharmacology and Pathology, Microbiology and Immunolo-gy at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Black earned his undergraduate degree from Loyola College in Baltimore and doctorate degree in Forensic Toxicology from the University of Maryland at Baltimore (1982). Dr. Black is a Fellow of the American Board of Forensic Toxicology (F-ABFT) and a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemists (FAIC). Dr. Black was Department Head and Director of Toxicology for Maryland Medical Laboratory, Inc. from 1982-1986. He joined Vanderbilt University in 1986 as Assistant Professor with appointments in Pathology and Pharmacology. In 1990, Dr. Black founded Aegis Sciences Corporation where he served as Chairman and CEO until Oc-tober of 2016. Aegis served as a forensic chemical and drug testing labo-ratory specializing in Zero-Tolerance Drug Testing® (proprietary process), employee drug testing (SAMHSA), professional and amateur athlete drug testing (Doping Control), food/supplement analysis, pain management com-pliance testing, crime scene evidence analysis, driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, and post-mortem evaluations. Dr. Black has served as Program Administrator for substance abuse programs for NASCAR, IndyCar

and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and as a consultant to Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) and the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA). He has also served as a consultant to major corporations for development of substance abuse prevention policies and testing programs. He has testified extensively in local, state, national and international courts as an expert witness regarding drug use and testing programs. He is author/co-author of many peer reviewed published scientific papers in various scientific journals. Dr. Black is also Founder and President of Ebon-Falcon, LLC (a commercial real estate company), and Founder and President of “2nd Vote” (a research organization monitoring Corporate social activism). Dr. Black served in the U.S. Marine Corps (1966-69) and in combat in Vietnam (1968-69) and is a 10% disabled veteran. Personal in-terests include church and community activities, Rotary International, Guatemala Medical/Dental/Vision Mission Trips. Dr. Black has been a Board member of the Nashville Healthcare Council and Life Sciences of Tennessee. Dr. Black lives in Gallatin, Tennessee, with his wife US Congressman Diane Black (TN 6th District), and they have three children and six grandchildren.

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Andrea Carnegie, PhD, is the Chief Operating Officer of the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute. Prior to joining NC TRACS, she was the Director of Administrative Operations at the University of Illinois at the Chicago Center for Clinical and Translational Science. From 2007 to 2009, she was the administrative manager of the Oregon Retinal Degeneration Center at the Casey Eye Institute, Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, where she worked directly in clinical trial design and operations.

Dr. Carnegie received a BS in Biology at Emory and a PhD in Pharmacology from Vanderbilt University as well as completing postdoctoral fellowships at Oregon Health & Science University. Her basic science work was on intra-cellular signaling mechanisms and biogenic amine transport in cardiac and neuronal cells. She is also an Assistant Professor of Medicine, in the Division of Endocrinology & Metabolism.

David Daniel, MD, is the Sr. VP and Chief Medical Officer of Bracket Global. In this role, Dr. Daniel provides overall scientific, clinical and strategic direction for Bracket’s services. Prior to joining Bracket, Dr. Daniel was the founder and President of Global Learning, LLC which was acquired by United BioSource Corporation in July 2006. He formerly served as Medical Director of the NIMH Neuroscience Center at Saint Elizabeth’s, Director of Clinical Trials for the Stanley Foundation, and was a founding Principal of Best Prac-tice, LLC. For over 20 years, Dr. Daniel has supervised and trained raters in psychiatric clinical trials in the United States and globally. He has published numerous scientific articles involving clinical trials and investigations of the psychopathology of mental illness. He has received patent protection for new treatment approaches in epilepsy, anxiety disorders and psychotic disorders.

Dr. Daniel graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude from Emory University and obtained his medical school and psychiatry post-graduate training at Vanderbilt University, where he served as chief resident. He was a medical staff fellow and senior staff fellow within the intramural program of the National Institute of Mental Health (DIRP, NIMH) for five years. He is currently a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavior Sciences at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

Originally from West Lafayette, Indiana, Joann Data, MD, PhD, earned her MD at Washington University in St. Louis, before coming to Vanderbilt University to work on her PhD in Pharmacology with John Oates, MD, the Thomas F. Frist Sr. Professor of Medicine and the founding director of Van-derbilt University’s Division of Clinical Pharmacology. She earned her PhD in 1977, simultaneously completing her fellowship in Clinical Pharmacology and then serving as an instructor in Medicine and Pharmacology until her graduation. Upon graduation, she joined The Upjohn Company doing car-diovascular clinical investigation. She held positions at Burroughs Wellcome and Company, and Hoffmann-La Roche prior to returning to The Upjohn Company where she became corporate vice president for Worldwide Pharma-ceutical Regulatory Affairs and Project Management. When Upjohn merged with Pharmacia, she joined CoCensys, Incorporated, as senior vice president of Clinical Development and Regulatory Affairs. From there she became the

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senior vice president of Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance at Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Incorporated. Over the course of her remarkable career, Dr. Data helped get 38 new drugs on the market, including two diabetes drugs (Symlin and Byetta), DepoProvera and Rogaine for Women. Today she is a consultant for the pharmaceutical industry and bioventure groups evaluating programs to see if their products are likely to make it to market and making recommendations regarding financial backing. Data serves on an advisory board working with Nancy Brown, MD, chair of the Department of Medicine, and former chief of the Division of Clinical Pharmacology.

Jon Duane is a Senior Partner Emeritus at McKinsey & Company and the Executive Chairman at Nashville Biosciences. Jon is a senior leader, advisor & hands-on consultant to top executives of large, complex private/public companies, serving clients for 31 years in the pharma, medical-devices, life-sciences industries, and academic research. Known for his vision, impact, innovation & entrepreneurship, and for delivering huge wins to clients, Mr. Duane’s expertise includes advising top executive teams on corporate/BU strategy, business building, organizational design & performance improve-ment. He founded/led McKinsey’s Silicon Valley Office, created/led McK-insey’s Biotech practice & served as strategic thought leader on personalized medicine, emerging markets, pricing of novel products & product life-cycle management. Mr. Duane drove clients’ bottom-line impact/growth with work that had transformational results. He was a key player in enabling a stock price increase of 11%/year over ~10 years of service for a global, diversified healthcare products company by serving its CEO and top team across all BU

and strategic topics, and paved the way for substantial shareholder value creation by facilitating the separation of the Pharma business to create 2 publicly-traded companies, subsequently contributing to a 20%/year share price increase for the new Pharma company. Mr. Duane unlocked a major academic center’s innovation by supporting key asset commercialization, leveraging IP & facilitating the spin out of a Genomics & Clinical Research Analyt-ics business (~ $5M in revenue its first 2 years of operation), and the 2017 launch of an independent drug compa-ny. He created shareholder value for a portfolio of cardiovascular medical device companies & enabled a biotech industry pioneer to pivot/become worldwide leader in Oncology. His many leadership roles at McKinsey include that of West Coast Healthcare Practice Leader; Chair, NA Client Service Risk Committee; and Master Faculty Member, McKinsey Partner U. He has an MBA from Harvard University and a BA from Wesleyan University.

Bruce R. Evans was elected to the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust in 2009 and became Chairman in 2017. He is a Senior Advisor to Summit Part-ners, a growth equity, venture capital and credit investment firm with offices in Boston, Menlo Park and London that has raised more than $20 billion in capi-tal since its 1984 inception. He is also Chairman of Summit Partners’ Board of Managers and has been a member of the firm’s Board and management leader-ship group since co-leading a successful leveraged buyout of Summit from its founders in 1999. During his thirty-two year career as a venture capitalist, Mr. Evans has served as a director of more than 35 companies, including fourteen public companies. In addition, he was a member of the board of directors of the National Venture Capital Association from 2009 to 2014 and was named to the Forbes Midas List from 2006 to 2009. He is currently a director of Analog Devices (NASDAQ: ADI), a designer and manufacturer of high performance semiconductor products; Casa Systems (NASDAQ: CASA), a provider of next

generation broadband communications infrastructure equipment; Fuze, a provider of cloud-based unified com-munications services and Masternaut Group Holdings, a UK based telematics software and services company. His prior public company directorships include Fleetcor Technologies, a provider of fleet credit cards and other specialized payment products for businesses (NYSE: FLT); Hittite Microwave, a designer and manufacturer of

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communications integrated circuits; optionsXpress Holdings, an on-line stock and option brokerage; and Pedia-trix Medical Group, a comprehensive provider of neonatology services and other health solutions that was later renamed Mednax (NYSE: MD). Prior to joining Summit Partners in Boston in 1986, Mr. Evans sold mainframe computers for IBM in Louisville, Kentucky.

Mr. Evans was also a member of the initial Board of Directors of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, after its 2016 spinoff from Vanderbilt University. From 1998 to 2009, prior to his tenure as a Vanderbilt Trustee, he served as a community member of Vanderbilt’s Board of Trust Investment Committee. In addition, Mr. Evans has served as a trustee of The Roxbury Latin School, and as a member of the Harvard Business School Board of Dean’s Advisors. Mr. Evans is a graduate of Huntington High School in Huntington, West Virginia. He attended Vanderbilt as a recipient of a James W. Stewart, Jr. Honor Scholarship in Engineering and graduated from the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering with a BE, magna cum laude, in Mechanical Engineering and Eco-nomics in 1981. He also received an MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1986. Mr. Evans, and his wife Bridgitt, reside in Boston and have two daughters and two sons. One of their sons is a graduate of Bowdoin Col-lege. Their other three children graduated from Vanderbilt.

Alexander “Zan” Fleming, MD, is President and CEO of Tolerion, a biotechnology company developing disease-modifying treatments for type 1 diabetes and other autoimmune diseases. He is also Founder and Executive Chairman of Kinexum, a company of professionals from across the world with diverse expertise in developing drugs, biotech products, medical devices and digital health technologies. Dr. Fleming received his MD and internal medi-cine training from Emory University, fellowship training in endocrinology at Vanderbilt University and metabolism at National Institutes of Health, where he was a senior fellow. At the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 1986-98, Dr. Fleming was responsible for the therapeutic areas of diabetes, other metabolic and endocrine disorders, growth and development, nutrition, lipid-lowering compounds, and reproductive indications. He led reviews of landmark approvals including metformin and the first statin, insulin analog, PPAR-agonist, and growth hormone for non-GH deficiency indications. Dr.

Fleming oversaw clinical review of the earliest biotech products including human insulin and growth hormone. He helped to shape FDA policies and practices related to therapeutic review and regulatory communication. He was a major contributor to FDA’s Good Review Practice (GRP) initiative and led the committee responsible for education and training at CDER. He conceived and directed the first FDA pilot project to utilize the internet for regulatory communication. His regulatory and technical expertise has been requested in numerous interna-tional settings including the World Health Organization, where he was assigned from FDA during 1991-92. Dr. Fleming was a member of the expert working groups on Good Clinical Practices and General Considerations for Clinical Trials of the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) and participated on other ICH committees including the Common Technical Document working group. Dr. Fleming is lead author of the book, Optimizing Development of Therapies for Diabetes. He has frequently published scientific articles and book chapters, the most recent chapter, Regulatory Considerations for Early Clinical Development, is in Translational Research Methods for Diabetes, Obesity and Cardiometabolic Drug Development, published by Springer in October 2018. He has been a member of many corporate and advisory boards to academic and commercial institutions and pro-fessional societies. He serves on the joint technology working groups of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes and American Diabetes Association. Dr. Fleming coined the term, “Metabesity,” which refers to the constellation of cancer, heart and neurologic diseases, diabetes and the aging process itself, all which share com-mon metabolic root causes and potential preventive therapies. He organized the first Congress on Metabesity in London in October 2017, which will be followed by the second Congress in Washington, D.C. in 2019.

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Dennis Grimaud, CEO, RED Consulting, brings over 40 years of experi-ence in the health care industry and 30 years of experience in biotechnology as an entrepreneur, senior executive and consultant. He is currently Founder and CEO of Reliability, Execution, Development (RED), a healthcare and bio-technology company providing science, business and management services. He was most recently Chairman, CEO and Founder of DIATHERIX Laboratories, Incorporated, a clinical laboratory that provides testing services to physicians and hospitals for the identification of infectious disease through proprietary multiplexing PCR technology. He was CEO of Genaco Biomedical Products, Incorporated, providing Molecular Differential Diagnostics through multiplex-ing technology in infectious disease and cancer. He was also Chairman and CEO of Premier Micronutrient Corporation, a disease management company providing risk-based, disease specific micronutrient protocols that are adjunc-tive to standard therapy. Dennis was Founder, Chairman and CEO of ScyTech, Incorporated, a company providing management and business services to life

science related biotechnology and health care companies. He also co-founded and was Chairman, President and CEO of Cytometry Associates, Incorporated, a specialized cancer testing facility providing clinical diagnostic testing services to physician specialists and biopharmaceutical services to the pharmaceutical industry in drug discovery and clinical trials. Prior to Cytometry Associates he served as Vice President and General Manager of the Center for Clinical Sciences, a centralized esoteric testing center for International Clinical Laboratories, Incorporated. He also held the positions of Vice President ICL East, responsible for turning around troubled op-erational divisions and Vice President of Sales and Marketing at ICL responsible for developing market strategy for cooperative agreements with hospitals. Prior to joining ICL he held two positions with National Medical En-terprises, Incorporated, as Administrator of Medical Diagnostics and Director of Laboratory Services in materials management providing consultation to over 150 hospitals and medical facilities nationwide. Mr. Grimaud was a director of MedBioGene a publically traded biotechnology company in Vancouver, Canada. He served on the Board of Directors of Genaco Biomedical Products, Incorporated, and is a founding member and former director of the Nashville Health Care Council in Nashville, Tennessee. He was also a founding member Chairman and President of the Tennessee Biotechnology Association from 1998-2004. He is an invited speaker to healthcare payers, hospital corporations, boards of directors and academic institutions related to executive management pro-grams. He is an advisor to Oliver Wyman, an international consulting firm.

Richard Hamilton, PhD, is the co-founder, President and CEO of Prosper eDNA, a technology startup company focused on a consumer-based product that analyzes epigenetics to provide personalized recommendations on diet, exercise, mindfulness and aging. Before Prosper, Dr. Hamilton was the Presi-dent and CEO of Ceres, Incorporated, a publicly held plant genomics company that was acquired by Land O’Lakes. Dr. Hamilton has more than 20 years of experience in biotechnology, genomics and finance. He served as Principal of Oxford Bioscience Partners, one of the leading investors in the genomics field. He has been active in the Biotechnology Industry Organization, where he has served as Vice Chairman of the organization, chaired its Food and Agriculture Governing Board and served in other leadership roles. He has been a member of the Keck Graduate Institute Advisory Council and was a Founding Member of the Council for Sustainable Biomass Production. He frequently speaks before policymakers, business leaders and scientific organizations regarding biotech-nology and genomics. He has addressed the House Agriculture Committee, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the National Academy of Sciences, among others.

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Dr. William Pao, M.D. Ph.D., is the Head of Roche’s Pharmaceuti-cal Research & Early Development (pRED) unit, based in Basel, Switzer-land. In this position, he oversees the development of new molecules to treat a variety of diseases (neuroscience, ophthalmology, rare diseases, in-flammation, immunity, infectious diseases and oncology), spanning stages from target assessment to phase II clinical trials. Prior to his current posi-tion, he was the Global Head of the Oncology Discovery and Translation-al Area (DTA) for pRED. He obtained his MD and PhD degrees at Yale University, did his housestaff training in Internal Medicine at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Campus, and completed his medical oncology and postdoctoral fellowship training at Memorial Sloan-Ketter-ing Cancer Center (MSKCC). He joined the faculty at MSKCC and was eventually recruited to Vanderbilt, where he became Professor of Medi-cine, Director of the Division of Hematology/Oncology, and Director of

Personalized Cancer Medicine at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. In his laboratory, he developed a basic and translational research program that made seminal contributions to the understanding of molecular mechanisms of solid tumor pathogenesis, with a particular focus on lung cancer. His work identified new molecular mechanisms of sensitivity and resistance of lung cancers to EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) and yielded important in-sights into a molecular understanding of lung adenocarcinoma in never smokers as well as thymic malignancies and melanoma. Based on these discoveries, he is co-patent holder on EGFR T790M mutation testing, and he developed and successfully tested new anti-cancer therapies in animal models and humans, including the com-bination of afatinib plus cetuximab as well as AZD9291 (osimertinib; Tagrisso) for patients with EGFR mutant tumors and resistance to EGFR TKIs. His work has helped change the standard of care in lung cancer.

Dr. Hamilton has been a Director of Yield10 Bioscience, Incorporated, since March 2, 2017. From 1990 to 1991, he served as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Fellow of Harvard Medical School.

Lee E Limbird, PhD, obtained her undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio in 1970, and her PhD in Bio-chemistry from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in 1973. Her PhD research was in a directly clinically applicable area, the quantitation of the isoenzymes of CPK for identification of myocardial infarction in the con-text of confounding ECG findings. However, a postdoctoral fellowship with Robert J. Lefkowitz, MD, Duke University, transitioned her research focus to basic science research and to the molecular bases for epinephrine action through G protein-coupled receptors. Her own laboratory at Vanderbilt Uni-versity (1979-2014) focused on the affinity purification and identification of interacting partners for the alpha2-adrenergic receptor, and functional conse-quences in vitro and in vivo of mutation of the receptor to selectively disrupt coupling to one versus another signaling pathway. The laboratory also inves-tigated the underlying molecular bases for receptor trafficking to distinct com-partments in polarized cells. Her laboratory has been the recipient of many research awards. As Chair of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University, Dr. Lim-bird enjoyed the privilege of mentoring junior faculty in their career develop-

ment; as the first Associate Vice Chancellor for Research at Vanderbilt Medical Center, Dr. Limbird fostered a focus on inter-disciplinary collaboration and After retiring from Vanderbilt in 2004, Dr. Limbird pursued in more depth her commitment to developing greater opportunities for those currently under-represented in discovery and

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Dr. Pao has received multiple honors and awards, including an ASCO Young Investigator Award, a Clinical Scien-tist Development Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, a V Foundation grant, the Hope Now Award from the Joan’s Legacy Foundation, and an SU2C Innovative Grant Award from the AACR. He was inducted into the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 2011 and the Association of American Physicians in 2017. Dr. Pao also co-founded MyCancerGenome, an internationally-recognized online tool to enable a genetically-in-formed approach to cancer medicine. Throughout his career, Dr. Pao has served as a mentor for numerous junior faculty, postdoctoral fellows, medical fellows, medical students, PhD graduate students, college students, and high school students. Many of his lab mentees remain in academia. He remains an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt.

Asit Parikh, M.D. Ph.D., earned his Ph.D in Biochemistry and MD degrees from Vanderbilt University, completed internal medicine residency at the University of Pennsylvania, and subspecialty training in gastroenterology at the Massachusetts General Hospital, with post-doctoral work in Cancer Biology at MIT. In 2006, Dr Parikh joined the Clinical Research division at Millennium Pharmaceuticals where he focused on inflammation and early stage oncology clinical trials. There he led the development of vedolizumab (Entyvio), which rep-resented the largest controlled clinical trial program ever conducted in inflammatory bowel disease. Since January 2012, Dr Parikh has served as Therapeutic Area Head for General Medicines and Gastroenterolo-gy at Millennium’s parent company, Takeda Pharmaceuticals Interna-tional, where he helps guide Takeda’s global R&D strategy. Under his leadership, Takeda has achieved global approvals for Entyvio, a Japan

approval for Takecab for treatment of acid related disorders, in-licensed a molecule for IBD, and created a virtual GI drug discovery unit, all essential components of building a sustainable R&D pipeline focused on gastroenter-ology. Dr Parikh maintains a commitment to research, patient care and teaching. He has authored a number of scientific manuscripts and presented at major scientific congresses. He continues to teach graduate students and residents as a guest lecturer, and is board certified and licensed to practice internal medicine and gastroenterology in the state of Massachusetts.

John-Kelly Warren is the CEO of the William K. Warren Founda-tion and is based in Tulsa, OK. The William K. Warren Foundation was created in 1945 by Mr. and Mrs. William Kelly Warren. The goal of the Foundation has been to provide the finest possible medical care avail-able to all patients utilizing Saint Francis Health System and to this end, it annually supports various medical programs. In addition to the hospi-tals and clinics, the Foundation created The William K. Warren Medical Research Center in 1973 that provides funds to medical investigators who participate in advanced medical research and creates environments that allow for the best possible delivery of care.

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Basic Sciences LeadershipLawrence J. Marnett, Dean of Basic Sciences, came to Vander-bilt in 1989. He is the Director of the A. B. Hancock, Jr. Memorial Labo-ratory for Cancer Research, Mary Geddes Stahlman Professor of Cancer Research, Professor of Biochemistry, and Professor of Chemistry. Mar-nett received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Duke University in 1973 and did postdoctoral work at the Karolinska Institute and Wayne State Uni-versity. He began his academic career at Wayne State University where he rose through the ranks to Professor of Chemistry. Marnett’s research program focuses on the role of the enzyme cyclooxygenase-2 in cancer and inflammation as well as on the contribution of normal metabolism to the generation of DNA damage and mutation. His group has used struc-ture-based based approaches in conjunction with medicinal chemistry to design selective cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitors as potential anti-inflamma-tory, cancer preventive, and anti-angiogenic agents.

Included in the awards Marnett has received are The Wayne State Uni-versity President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, the American Can-cer Society Faculty Research Award, the Sigma Xi Research Award, the

Michigan Association of Governing Boards Distinguished Faculty Award, the Wayne State University Distin-guished Graduate Faculty Award, an Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute, the Harvey Branscomb Distinguished Professorship, the Stanley Cohen Prize at Vanderbilt University, and the first Founders Award of the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Toxicology. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is the author of over 530 research publications and 14 patents. He is the founding editor-in-chief of the American Chemical Society journal, Chemical Research in Toxicology. Marnett served as Associate Director of Basic Research of the Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center from 1993-2002, became Director of the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology in 2002, and was named Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Senior Associate Dean for Biomedical Sciences for the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2014. In 2016, he became the first Dean of Basic Sciences of the School of Medicine.

Roger Chalkley is the Senior Associate Dean for Biomedical Re-search Education and Training (BRET) and the professor of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, School of Medicine at Vanderbilt. He is responsible for the overview of activities of the office of Biomedical Research Education and Training. These responsibilities include oversight of the PostDoctoral Affairs, the IGP, the MD/PhD Program, Ph.D. granting programs as well as Minority Activities and supporting Training Grant applications. Dr. Chalkley was edu-cated at Pembroke College, Oxford in Chemistry and conducted post-doctoral research in gene regulation and chromatin structure in the laboratory of James Bonner at CalTech. After almost 20 years in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Iowa School of Medicine, he moved to Vanderbilt in 1986. He has published almost 200 papers in chromatin research. Dr. Chalkley has had an active interest in graduate education for many years and was involved in the establishment of the IGP where he served as Director for eight years.

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Kathleen Gould is the Associate Dean for Biomedical Scienc-es, the Louise B. McGavock Chair, and Professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology. Dr. Gould received her A.B. degree in Bio-chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and her Ph.D. in Bi-ology from the University of California, San Diego. From 1988-90, she was a Fellow of the Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research at the University of Oxford with Sir Paul Nurse who was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2001. After joining the Vanderbilt faculty, Dr. Gould received the Boehringer-Ingelheim New Investigator Award, the Searle Scholar Award, and was an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 1994-2013. Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2011, Dr. Gould is also a member of several national professional societies and journal editorial boards, and serves regularly as reviewer for the National Institutes of Health and the Ford Foundation. At Vanderbilt, Dr. Gould has served in multiple leadership roles including Interim and Vice Chair of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Director of the

Vanderbilt International Scholar Program, and Chair of the institutional biomedical/biological sciences internal review committee for limited submission opportunity applications. Dr. Gould is currently Director of Graduate Student Support and Associate Dean for Biomedical Sciences in the School of Medicine and leads Ph.D. trainee career development grants from the National Institutes of Health and Burroughs Wellcome Fund. Dr. Gould’s laboratory studies the mechanism and regulation of cell division, blending genetic, biochemical, genomic, struc-tural, proteomic, and live cell imaging approaches to identify and characterize the constituents of the cytokinetic machinery and to discover how post-translational modifications of this machinery ensure the exquisite spatial and temporal control of cell division.

Alyssa Hasty, Associate Dean for Faculty Development, has been a member of the faculty in the Department of Molecular Physiology and Bio-physics since 2003 and since 2014 she has been an investigator of the Tennessee Valley Veteran’s Administration Research Institute. She is an active member of the Vanderbilt Diabetes Center and the Digestive Diseases Research Center. Alyssa’s research interests are in diabetes and obesity, most recently focusing on the role of macrophages in promoting inflammation and insulin resistance in obesity. Alyssa has been very active in mentoring students as Director of Gradu-ate Studies in MPB and faculty as Director of Career Development of the DDRC and Chair of the Women on Track Steering Committee. She is also Faculty Head of House of Murray House. Alyssa is currently participating in the Hedwingam van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Program at Drexel University.

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Charles (Chuck) Sanders, Associate Dean for Research, has been on the faculty of the Biochemistry Department since 2002 and is an active mem-ber of the Center for Structural Biology. Chuck’s research interests focus on the role of membrane proteins, especially with flexible or unfolded structures, in the pathophysiology of cardiovascular and neurologic disorders. Chuck has won many awards for his research including the Hans Neurath Award of the Protein Society and the Stanley Cohen Award of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He has been a very active participant on research committees at Vanderbilt (e.g., Co-chair of TIPs Review Panel) and has served on multi-ple NIH study sections. He was Associate Editor of the journal, Biochemistry, from 2004-2015 and was interim Editor-in-Chief from 2015 to 2016.

Linda Sealy, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclu-sion, has been on the faculty of the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics since 1986 and since 2006, has had a joint appointment in Can-cer Biology. Her research focuses on the relationship between cell signaling and transcription in the control of cancer cell growth. Since 2007, Linda has served as Co-Director, then Director, of the Initiative for Maximizing Student Diversity (IMSD), an NIH-sponsored grant for the graduate training of under-represented minorities. Under her leadership, the IMSD program has propelled Vanderbilt to the top echelon of institutions training minority Ph.D.’s. In fact, Vanderbilt was recently identified as the top producer of African-American Ph.D.’s in the US in biological and biomedical sciences. Her advocacy for holistic admission in graduate recruiting has been recognized nationally as a critical advance in expanding the pipeline of graduate students to include un-derrepresented minorities. Linda has won numerous awards for her contribu-tions to diversity in graduate education, including the Levi Watkins Jr. Faculty

Award for Promoting Diversity and the inaugural Bishop Joseph A. Johnson Jr. Distinguished Leadership Profes-sor Award.

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Basic Sciences Department ChairsDr. Joey Barnett is the Acting Chair, Department of Pharmacology, Professor of Pharmacology, Medicine, Pediatrics, and Pathology, Microbiology & Immunology, Director, Office of Medical Student Research, and Assistant Dean, Physician-Researcher Training. Dr. Barnett directs and coordinates first and second year medical school courses where students learn about the principles of research in preparation for a 3- to 6-month mentored research experience in their third or fourth years. This experience is provided for all non-M.D./Ph.D. students. He oversees the Medical Scholars Program, which provides support for eight students annually to dedicate a full year to a mentored research project.

The Barnett lab has worked for a number of years on Transforming Growth Factor Beta (TGFß) biology and in the context of cardiac development. The Type III TGFß Receptor (TGFßR3), also known as betaglycan, is a ubiquitously expressed TGFß & BMP receptor that plays an essential role in regulating diverse cellular responses

in cardiac development, cancer and angiogenesis. TGFßR3 functions as a rheostat balancing opposing signals downstream of TGFß & BMP receptors, and is down regulated in the lungs of patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). PAH is a fatal disease for which no disease modifying therapies have been developed. Clues to the pathogenesis and disease modifying therapeutics for PAH may be gained from the analysis of patients with heritable (HPAH). These findings pose fundamental questions about the role of BMPR2 & TGFßR3 cross talk in PAH pathogenesis, answers to which may lead to better understanding of the mechanisms underlying PAH and identification of novel therapeutic targets. In 2017, Dr. Barnett received the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Louis B. Russell Jr. Memorial Award for his efforts as an advocate for the career advancement of minority stu-dents and trainees in cardiovascular science, and for increased representation of underserved communities among the AHA volunteer base.

Roger J. Colbran, PhD, is the Interim Chair and a Louise B. Mc-Gavock Professor in the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics. He came to Vanderbilt in 1986 as a Research Associate and was appointed to the faculty in 1992. Dr. Colbran formerly served as the Director of Graduate Studies and Vice Chair of the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, and is currently the Director of the Postdoctoral Training Program in Functional Neurogenomics in the Vanderbilt Brain Institute. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, was an Established In-vestigator of the American Heart Association, and received the Charles R. Park Award of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine For Basic Research Revealing Insights into Physiology or Pathophysiology. Dr. Colbran is a member of Society for Neuroscience and the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biol-ogy, and is currently serving as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Biological

Chemistry. He is an investigator in the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development, the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, the Vanderbilt Center for Molecular Neuroscience and the Vanderbilt Diabetes Research and Training Center. He has had long-standing interests in Ca2+-dependent signaling and protein phos-phorylation/dephosphorylation, and has published more than 120 primary research articles. His research program is now focused on understanding the regulation of excitatory synaptic transmission in the central nervous system under physiological and pathophysiological conditions. Research in the Colbran lab has been funded by grants from the NIH (NIMH, NINDS, NIGMS), American Heart Association and the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

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Ian Macara is the Louise B. McGavock Professor and Chairman of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, currently the third highest ranked NIH funded cell biology department in the US. He also serves as co-chair of the Signal Trans-duction Program in the Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center. Previously, Dr. Macara was appointed the Harrison Distinguished Professor of Microbiology, was a Craig Scholar, directed the Advanced Microscopy Facility at the University of Virgina, and received the Distinguished Science Award before moving to Vanderbilt in 2012 to assume leadership of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology.

Dr. Macara has studied various aspects of cancer biology for several decades, and has focused on cell polarity mechanisms for over 10 years with continuous funding from the NIH for over 30 years. A major goal of his laboratory is to tack-le fundamental questions concerning the function of cell polarity in mammary morphogenesis and breast cancer. He has published over 185 research papers,

has an h-index of 82 (Google Scholar), and is placed in the top 5% of cited authors for journals in Biology and Biochemistry (per analysis by Thomson Reuters).

Dr. Macara is committed to the education of young scientists and has trained 35 graduate students and 35 post-doctoral fellows. Many have been highly productive with publications in top-ranked journals. At least 25%of the graduate students and about 50% of the postdocs have gone on to successful, independent academic careers.

Dr. Macara is a member of the American Society of Cell Biologists (ASCB) and the American Society of Bi-ological Chemists. He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Perlmutter Cancer Center at NYU. He has served on the ASCB Council and on the NCI Basic Research Board of Scientific Counselors. Dr. Macara received the Colin Thomson Memorial Medal by the Worldwide Cancer Research fund in recognition of his outstanding contribu-tion to research into cancer by the Beatson International Conference. He organized and chaired the first EMBO conference on Cell Polarity and the first GRC conference on Cell Polarity, both of which have become annual conferences. Dr. Macara is currently on the editorial board as Senior Editor for Journal of Cell Biology, as Editor for Current Opinions in Cell Biology, and on the Editorial Board for Cellular Logistics.

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John York is the Chair of Biochemistry and Natalie Overall War-ren Professor of Chemistry. His lab’s discovery-based and curiosity-driv-en science has garnered international attention in the field of cellular commu-nication. York’s discoveries of pathways involved in signaling networks of organisms has led to new paradigms in the field and furthered our understanding of the pathophysiology of disease. Through these discoveries, he has co-founded and chaired several worldwide scientific meetings.

York is trained as a cellular and molecular biochemist and his research utilizes a multidisciplinary approach to study the underlying mechanisms of cellular sig-naling, including chemical codes such as inositides. Inositide signals are small ring-shaped molecules which have six arms that may be modified by addition of phosphate. York imagines that the complex pattern of chemical messengers produced by organisms allow for thousands of unique instructions, enabling reg-ulation of cellular processes. Basic-science discoveries from his laboratory have

led to identification of disease genes and contributed to biomedical research.

In addition, York has contributed to institutional faculty governance and graduate education missions that have helped shape strategic and long-term support for the basic sciences. His professional duties include: Associate Editor of Molecular Biology of the Cell; member of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund’s Science Advisory Review Board; and past member of NIH grant review panels. York has trained over 40 scientists in his laboratory and has served on over 50 graduate student thesis committees. Under his leadership, Vanderbilt has revised graduate study expectations and focused on recruiting highly talented and diverse new faculty members.

York grew up outside of Chicago and received his BS in Biochemistry from the University of Iowa in 1986. After working at Merck Research labs, York started graduate school in 1990 in the laboratory of Dr. Philip Majerus and received his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Biochemistry from Washington University in 1993. York began his faculty career at Duke in 1996 as an Assistant Professor in Pharmacology and Biochemistry and rose through the ranks to Cancer Biology Distinguished Professor. In 2012, he moved to Vanderbilt to serve as Department Chair and Natalie Overall Warren Professor of Biochemistry. Among York’s awards are: Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences, Whitehead Scholar, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, ASBMB Schering-Plough Science Achievement Award and election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences.

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Richard M. Caprioli is the Stanford Moore Professor of Biochem-istry and Director of the Mass Spectrometry Research Center at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He is Principal Investiga-tor of the National Institutes of Health Imaging Mass Spectrometry National Re-source. He is also currently Professor in the Departments of Chemistry, Medicine and Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Caprioli received his B.S. in 1965 from Columbia University in New York, N.Y., his Ph.D. in 1969 in Biochemistry, also at Columbia University with Professor David Rittenberg. After a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at Purdue University with Professor John H. Beynon, he was appointed as Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at Purdue in 1970. Dr. Cap-rioli moved to the University of Texas Medical School in Houston in 1975 where he was Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Director of the Ana-lytical Chemistry Center. He moved to Vanderbilt University in 1998 where he is currently Professor in the Departments of Biochemistry, Chemistry, Pharmacology

and Internal Medicine.

Professor Caprioli’s general research interests lie in discovery of temporal and spatial processes in biological sys-tems using mass spectrometry. This work has included technology developments in the areas of electrospray and laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry and their applications to intact tissues as well as other biological samples. Applications have focused on achieving ultra-high sensitivity detection of endogenous compounds (e.g., neuropeptides) in intact tissues and in live animal systems. Recent work involves the development of Imaging Mass Spectrometry, a technology whereby molecular images of peptides, proteins, drugs and other compounds are localized in tissue sections with molecular weight specificity. Investigations to specific research areas involve elucidation of spatial distributions of molecules in both health and disease. Of special interest is the molecular distributions, spatial rearrangement, and alterations is expression levels of biological molecules in cancer tissues including human glioblastomas, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, prostate cancer and lung cancer.

Dr. Caprioli has been a member of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry since 1975; he served two years each as President of the Society and Vice-President for Programs. He is a member of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the American Association for Cancer Research, and the American Chemi-cal Society. Professor Caprioli has been the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Mass Spectrometry since 1990. He is currently Series Editor of The Encyclopedia of Mass Spectrometry and additionally has edited several volumes in this encyclopedia. He has published over 300 scientific papers, including three books and holds 12 US patents involving mass spectrometry technologies. Dr. Caprioli recently served a 3-year term on the Board of Directors of HUPO and has been a member of the Board of Directors of the US HUPO since its inception.

In 2003, Dr. Caprioli received the Thomson Medal Award from the International Mass Spectrometry Society for “for outstanding achievements in mass spectrometry and for distinguished service to international mass spec-trometry.” He was named one of the “Pioneers in Proteomics” by the National Institutes of Health and received the Donald H. Coffey Award from the Society for Basic Urologic Research in 2005. He received the Field and Franklin Award from the American Chemical Society in April, 2006 for Outstanding Achievement in Mass Spec-trometry, the Eastern Analytical Society 2010 Award for Achievements in Mass Spectrometry and the HUPO Distinguished Achievement Award in Proteomic Sciences for 2010. Dr. Caprioli was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in November, 2012. Dr. Caprioli received the “Distinguished Contribution to Mass Spectrometry” Award by the American Society for Mass Spectrometry in June, 2014.

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Dr. Walter Chazin serves as Director of the Center for Struc-tural Biology and the Molecular Biophysics Training Pro-gram and holds the Chancellor’s Chair in Medicine as Professor in the De-partments of Biochemistry and Chemistry. He received a B.Sc. in chemistry from McGill University in 1975 and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Concordia University in Montreal in 1983. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Kurt Wüthrich at the E.T.H. in Switzerland (2002 Nobel laureate in Chem-istry). After 13 years on faculty in the Department of Molecular Biology at the Scripps Research Institute, he moved to Vanderbilt in 1999. The Chazin laboratory uses an array of biophysical and structural tools to interrogate the structure, dynamics and function of proteins and pro-tein complexes involved in calcium signaling, the inflammatory response, innate immune response, and DNA replication, damage response and re-pair. With powerful structural information in hand, we can provide crit-ical insights into the fundamental biology and medicine that drives our

research. We use a “whatever it takes” attitude in terms of approaches that generates the many collabora-tions (technical, biological, medical) that is a hallmark of our research. While trained in protein NMR, we have evolved into having a broad-based vision of structural biology/molecular biophysics that involves the complementary application of structural approaches, including spectroscopy, scattering, crystallography and microscopy. This is also the philosophy that drives the Center for Structural Biology.

Dr. Chazin has mentored over 100 graduate students and postdocs in his 31 years as an independent inves-tigator. He has published more than 200 peer reviewed papers and ~50 book chapters and reviews, and serves on a number of advisory committees and editorial boards. His honors include American Cancer So-ciety Junior Faculty and Faculty Research Awards, serving as a National Academy of Science International Travel Fellow and as a NAS Teaching Fellow, Regents Visiting Professor at the University of Naples in Italy, the Vanderbilt Chancellor’s Award for Research and the Stanley Cohen Award, and appointments as Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Fellow of the Biophysical Society.

Jeff Conn is the Lee E. Limbird Professor of Pharmacology at Van-derbilt University and Director of the Vanderbilt Center for Neuro-science Drug Discovery (VCNDD). Dr. Conn received a Ph.D. in Pharma-cology from Vanderbilt in 1986 and pursued postdoctoral studies at Yale University. Dr. Conn joined the faculty of the Department of Pharmacology at Emory University in 1988 where he where he established himself as a leader in studies of neurotrans-mitter receptors and their roles in regulating brain function in circuits involved in psychiatric and neurological disorders. In 2000, Dr. Conn assumed the position of Senior Director and Head of the Department of Neuroscience at Merck and Com-pany in West Point, PA. In addition to directing the drug discovery efforts of his department in multiple CNS therapeutic areas, Dr. Conn was responsible for over-seeing the global efforts of the company in discovery of new therapeutic agents for

treatment of schizophrenia and movement disorders.Dr. Conn moved to Vanderbilt University in 2003 where he is the founding director of the VCNDD, with a pri-mary mission of facilitating translation of recent advances in basic science to novel therapeutics. By 2011 the VCNDD had grown to approximately 100 full time scientists and under his leadership raised over $100M in external research funding. In addition, the VCNDD advanced novel molecules from multiple major programs into development for major brain disorders with industry partners, including Johnson and Johnson, Astrazeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb, and others. Each of these major efforts are focused on novel mechanisms for therapeutic action that have come from the basic research efforts of Dr. Conn and his collaborators. Dr. Conn has served as

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Associate Editor and Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Pharmacology and in editorial positions with multiple other international journals. He has served the Scientific Advisory Boards of multiple foundations, research institutes, and companies. He served as Chairman of the Neuropharmacology Division of the American Society for Phar-macology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and on multiple national and international committees. He has received numerous awards, including the NARSAD Essel Distinguished Investigator Award, the ASPET-Astellas Award in Translational Pharmacology, the Pharmacia - ASPET Award for Experimental Therapeutics, the Charles R. Park Award for Basic Research Revealing Insights into Physiology and Pathophysiology, the PhRMA Foundation Award for Excellence in Phar-macology and Toxicology. V. Sagar Sethi Mental Health Research Award, Jacob K. Javits Neuroscience Investi-gator Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders & Stroke. He was named as an ISI Most- Cited Scientists in Pharmacology & Toxicology and the Lee University 2008 Distinguished Alumnus of the Year. Dr. Conn’s current research is focused on development of novel treatment strategies for schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, and other serious brain disorders.

Dr. Mark A. Magnuson is Director of the Center for Stem Cell Biology, Director of the Transgenic Mouse Shared Resource, and Louise B. McGavock Chair and Professor of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Cell and Developmental Biology, and Medicine. After obtaining a medical degree from the University of Iowa in 1979, Dr. Magnuson received clinical training in Internal Medicine at the University of Rochester, research training in Molecular Endocrinology at the NIH, and further training in both Clinical and Molecular Endocrinology at Vanderbilt prior to joining the faculty in 1987 with a pri-mary appointment in Molecular Physiology and Biophysics. His research has long been focused on beta cell biology using reverse genetics in mice, and he has authored or co-authored over 230 scientific articles that have received over 29,000 citations. Between 1998 and 2005, Dr. Magnuson served as Director of the Office of Biomedical Sciences and Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research. He is an elected member of both the American Society of Clinical Investiga-

tion and the Association of American Physicians, a Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the recipient of the Sidney P. Colowick Faculty Award. He has served on multiple scientific review panels for the NIH and other funding agencies, been a member of the NIDDK Advisory Council, and was chair of the Executive and Steering Committees of the NIDDK-funded Beta Cell Biology Consortium for eleven years. In 2014 he received a Special Award from the NIDDK for his leadership of the Beta Cell Biology Consortium. His current research is focused on deciphering the gene regulatory network responsible for establishing pancreatic endocrine cell identity and determining how excitotoxicity and other metabolic stresses cause pancreatic beta cell failure. In addition, he is currently using CRISPR mutagenesis in mice to explore the role of several zinc finger transcription factors in these gene networks and to understand how Sox17 gene expression is controlled during early development.

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Dr. Lisa Monteggia is the Barlow Family Director of the Vander-bilt Brain Institute and Professor of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University. Previously, Dr. Monteggia held the Ginny and John Eulich Profes-sorship in Autism Spectrum Disorders and was Professor of Neuroscience at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Her lab focuses on the role of the molecular and cellular basis of neural plasticity as it pertains to neuropsychiatric disorders. Her research interest has been focused in two areas. First, she is working to elucidate the mechanisms underlying antidepressant efficacy with implications towards depression, bipolar disorder, and suicide. Second, she is studying the role of Methyl-CpG-binding protein 2 (MeCP2), the gene linked to the autism spectrum disorder, Rett syndrome, on synaptic plasticity and behavior with implications towards a better understanding of neurodevelopmental disorders. Her research encompasses molecular, cellular, behavioral and electrophysiological approaches using preclinical models.

Dr. Monteggia was an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, receiving a B.S. in Microbiology and then a M.S. in Biology. Dr. Monteggia then worked for several years in a pharmaceutical company where she was promoted to the level of Scientist. Concurrently, Dr. Monteggia attended the Chicago Medical School receiving a Ph.D. in Neuroscience and working with Dr. Marina Wolf in the area of drug abuse. Dr. Monteggia then moved to Yale University to complete a fellowship under the guidance of Dr. Eric Nestler in the area of molecular psychiatry. During her postdoctoral research, Dr. Monteggia received a postdoctoral NRSA fellowship and a young investigator award from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and De-pression (NARSAD). In 2002, Dr. Monteggia joined the Department of Psychiatry at UT Southwestern Medical School as an Assistant Professor. As an independent investigator, Dr. Monteggia has received numerous awards including the Daniel X. Freedman Award from NARSAD for outstanding research by a NARSAD young inves-tigator, the Rising Star Award from the International Mental Health Research Organization, and the Daniel H. Efron Award for outstanding basic/translational research by the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Dr. Monteggia has been recently elected as a Councilor for the Society for Neuroscience and current serves as a member of the National Institute of Health (NIH) Brain Initiative Working Group that reports to the NIH Director.

Dr. Monteggia is a Senior Editor of Neuropsychopharmacology and a member of the editorial boards of eLife, Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Biological Psychiatry, and Hippocampus. She has served on grant review panels for the NIH as well as numerous scientific foundations and is a recognized leader in the field of molecular psychiatry and neuroscience. Dr. Monteggia is actively involved in advocacy and outreach initiatives and has a sustained history in training and mentoring students to successfully transition into academic and industry endeavors.

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Dr. Gary A. Sulikowski, Director of the Institute of Chemical Bi-ology, received a BS in chemistry from Wayne State University and a PhD in or-ganic chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania. He was an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow at Yale University. His first faculty appointment was in the Department of Chemistry at Texas A&M University in 1991 and joined the Vanderbilt Chemistry Department and Institute of Chemical Biology in 2004. He is the faculty Director of the Institute of Chemical Biology Chemical Synthesis core, Stevenson Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Pharmacology. Sulikow-ski’s research interests are on the design and development of chemical syntheses of complex molecules, specifically bioactive natural products and molecular probes. Over time his interests have expanded to the chemical synthesis of molecular tools with application in biological research and therapeutic lead development. He has published over 125 research publications and co-authored 11 patents.

Dr. Sulikowski has received a number of fellowships and awards including an American Cancer Society Junior Faculty Fellowship, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, an Association of Former Students of Texas A&M Teaching Award, an American Cyanamid Award and an Eli Lilly Research Award. He was named a Texas A & M Faculty Fellow from 2002-2007, American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow 2008 and a Robert A. Welch Lecturer in 2004, and he was awarded a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship in 2003.

Dr. Vito Quaranta, MD, is Director of the Quantitative Systems Biology Center, Professor of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Basic Science, and Director for the National Cancer Institute Center for Systems Biology of Small Cell Lung Cancer at Vanderbilt. For close to two decades he has been implementing cutting-edge interdisciplinary effort melding mathematics, engineering, computation and biology to solve the problems of can-cer invasion, metastasis, and resistance to treatment. Dr. Quaranta has authored over 200 highly-cited scientific articles in the field of cancer and of systems bi-ology, and several relevant chapters in medical books. He has trained close to 50 postdoctoral fellows, MSTP and PhD students.Dr. Quaranta has achieved international recognition for his contributions to can-cer systems biology. His accolades include election to Fellow of the American

Association for the Advancement of Science; the Stanley Cohen Award for Outstanding Contribution for Research Bridging Diverse Disciplines; the Apulians in the World Prize for Outstanding Achievements of Apulia Natives; NCI-sponsored Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer on Integrative Cancer Biology; Scholarship and Fellowship from Leukemia Society of America; Senior Fellowship from American Cancer Society, California Division; and Fellowship from Italian-American Medical Education Foundation.Dr. Quaranta has been and is an invited lecturer at numerous congresses and conferences on cancer systems bi-ology. With Lourdes Estrada, Ph.D., he established an ongoing course in Cancer Systems Biology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and he lectures and holds workshops on the topic at national and international scientific meetings. He has also co-chaired the NCI’s Integrative Cancer Biology Program. Dr. Quaranta is or has been in the Editorial Board of several scientific journals, including Science Signaling, the Journal of Cellular Physiology and Cancer Research, routinely reviews for high-impact journals, and has been member of several NSF, NIH and NCI review panels.The Quaranta laboratory applies both theory and experimentation to frame cancer as a complex adaptive system that responds to perturbations, such as drug treatment, by evolving over multiple biological and temporal scales. The laboratory is comprised of a mix of experimentalists, engineers, statisticians, and mathematicians combin-ing experimental and modeling approaches iteratively towards a systems-level understanding of cancer. A major

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focus of the laboratory is the development of single-cell methodologies to evaluate the mechanism of action of targeted therapy in cancer, based on the merging of automated time-lapse microscopy with image analysis and computational modeling. Another is the dynamics of transcription factor and signaling networks that define and maintain cell identity, and ultimately contribute to forming the phenotypic landscape of the tumor microenviron-ment. A recent achievement was the development of methods that measure drug-response dynamics of heteroge-neous cancer cell populations as they emerge from single-cell behavior. These methods are rapidly becoming a fundamental tool to understand the basis for cancer cell resistance to treatment.

Dr. Danny Winder is director of the Vanderbilt Center for Ad-diction Research, Associate Director of the Vanderbilt Medical Scientist Training Program, Professor of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Pro-fessor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Professor of Pharmacolo-gy. He received a BS in biology and chemistry from North Georgia College and a PhD in neuroscience from Emory University. Dr. Winder’s research focuses on synaptic mechanisms in addiction and anxiety. His lab has been particularly interested in 1) determining molecular mechanisms that modulate synaptic plasticity in the extended amygdala, 2) determining how and when these mechanisms are disrupted in alcoholism, and 3) determin-ing the roles that modification of synaptic efficacy in these circuits has on stress and reward-related behavior. Accomplishing these goals has required extensive use of whole cell patch clamp and extracellular recordings in ex vivo brain slice preparations. He has had a longstanding commitment to the

use of mouse models to enable us to genetically perturb these circuits and to allow the use of genetically encoded reporters to mark specific neuronal populations for analysis.

Dr. Winder has a longstanding interest in training pre- and postdoctoral fellows in the use of electrophysiolog-ical approaches to study neuronal function. He has trained 13 successful PhD students to date, included 3 MD/PhD students. These former trainees are in postdocs and faculty positions across the country, including Dr. Zoe McElligott, on the faculty at UNC, Chapel Hill, Dr. Brad Grueter, on the faculty at Vanderbilt in the Department of Anesthesiology, and Dr. Bill Nobis, who is on the faculty of the Department of Neurology at Northwestern. Since 2008, five of his postdocs have earned K08 or K99 awards, all of whom have accepted tenure-track faculty positions at institutions across the country. Both Tom Kash and Sachin Patel won prestigious Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASEs) and now hold endowed chairs at their institutions. His postdoctoral mentorship was recently recognized at Vanderbilt with the F. Peter Guengerich Award for Mentoring Postdoctoral Fellows or Residents in the Research Setting.

Dr. Winder’s interests in graduate education are broad-based, as indicated by his service on the graduate faculty council and executive council at Vanderbilt, by his roles with the interdisciplinary graduate program admissions committee and neuroscience graduate program, by his prior role as director of graduate studies for the Depart-ment of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics graduate training program, and by his current role as co-director of the neuroscience graduate program. He is also very interested in supporting and facilitating MD/PhD training, as evidenced by his role as Associate Director of the Vanderbilt MSTP.

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Development & Alumni Relations StaffChris Cloar is the Associate Director of Leadership Annual Giving for the Basic Sciences at Vanderbilt. He is a graduate of Peabody College at Vanderbilt University, receiving his B.S. in Human and Organizational Development and his M.Ed. in Higher Education Administration. Prior to this role, Chris served on the Stewardship team within Vanderbilt Development and Alumni Relations.

Aaron Conley is the Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations for the Basic Sciences at Vanderbilt. He is a graduate of Ohio University, receiving his B.S. in Creative Writing and World Religions. Prior to this role, Aaron served as the Director of Foundation Relations for the James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State University.

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Tayler Murguia, Development Coordinator, has been a member of the Van-derbilt University Development and Alumni Relations team since 2015 and has been working with Vanderbilt University Basic Sciences since 2016. Her role focuses on supporting the major gift fundraising efforts of the Associate Dean for Basic Sciences and stewarding donors of Vanderbilt University Basic Sciences. In this role, she oversees The Discovery Circle, a society celebrating donors to the Basic Sciences. Prior to joining the Development team at Vanderbilt, she held roles at Deloitte Services LP, a global accounting organization, and Bug Music, Incorporated (now BMG Rights Management), an international music publishing company.

Eve Rodenmeyer is the Development and Alumni Relations Assistant for the School of Medicine, School of Nursing, and Basic Sciences. She received her B.A. in English Literature with minors in Biology and Psychology from the University of Mississippi. She began working in Development and Alumni Rela-tions for Vanderbilt in June 2018. She supports Taylor Wood, Associate Dean of Development for the School of Medicine and Basic Sciences, as well as Steven Barnes, Associate Dean of Development for the School of Nursing.

Taylor Wood, Associate Dean for Development, joined the Vanderbilt Univer-sity Development and Alumni Relations team in November of 2018. His role focuses on raising support for the School of Medicine and the Basic Sciences with an emphasis on major gifts and strategic volunteer engagement. Prior to joining Vanderbilt, he was the Assistant Dean for Advancement at the Syracuse University School of Architecture, serving as lead fundraiser for one of the top architecture programs in the country. Before assuming the aforementioned role in 2013, Taylor was the Director of Development for the College of Design at the University of Kentucky. He also served in positions early in his career in the de-velopment offices at Northern Kentucky University, Northern Illinois University and Ohio University. A Kentucky native, Taylor earned his Bachelor’s degree in English at the University of Kentucky and his Master’s degrees in Business Administration and Master’s in Sports Administration at Ohio University.

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Basic Sciences Board of Visitors Bylaws

ARTICLE 1. Preamble

1.1 The name of this organization is the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Basic Sciences Board of Visitors, hereinafter referred to as Board.

1.2 The purpose of the Board is to support and foster the achievement of excellence in all aspects of research, teaching and career development for the students and faculty members of Vanderbilt University’s Basic Sciences departments, programs and centers. This shall be accomplished by proactive commitment to the following activi-ties.

• AdvisingandsupportingtheDean.• Assistingindevelopingbeneficialrelationshipswithindustry,government,privatefoundations,and other academic institutions.• ReviewingandsupportingstrategicplansrelatedtotheBasicSciences.• ReportingtotheChancellorandProvostonthestatusandopportunitiesrelatedtotheBasicSciences.• AssistinginsecuringfundsforimportantprogramsandopportunitiesintheBasicSciences.• MakingindividualfinancialcommitmentstosupporttheBasicSciences.

ARTICLE 2. Membership

2.1 The Board membership is capped at 20 members. The members shall be alumni and non-alumni alike whose experience and accomplishments ensure the Board’s ability to achieve its purpose. Selection for member-ship shall be based on the candidate’s:

• demonstrationofprofessionalachievementsinfieldsofimportancetotheBasicSciences;• indicationofacommitmenttotheUniversitythroughserviceandfinancialsupport;and• enhancementofthebalanceoftheBoard’sbreadthanddiversity.

2.2 Appointments to the Board shall be made by the Dean. The Dean shall receive advice and nominations from the Chair of the Board the Executive Committee.

2.3 Members shall be appointed to the Board for a three-year term and may be appointed for a maximum of one additional consecutive terms of three years.

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ARTICLE 3. Board Member Commitments

Board members are expected to be personally engaged in supporting the Basic Sciences at Vanderbilt in the following ways.

3.1 Attend all regular meetings and participate in Board activities and discussions by voicing opinions, displaying leadership and thinking strategically and creatively.

3.2 Make a personal financial investment in the Basic Sciences, to the best of one’s ability, making the School a personal philanthropic priority, thereby inspiring others. All Board member will be asked to become recurring members of its Discovery Circle, thereby providing generous annual support to empower the Dean to address the greatest needs and exciting opportunities.

3.3 Those members of the Board who become unable to meet these commitments or miss two consecutive meetings may be removed from the Board.

ARTICLE 4. Officers and Executive Committee

4.1 The Officers of the Board shall be comprise of the Chair, Vice-Chair, heads of the active Task Forces and the Dean. Together, they form the Executive Committee.

4.2 The Chair and Vice-Chair shall be appointed concurrently and shall both serve terms of two years. It is expected that, upon completion of the Chair’s term, the Vice-Chair shall be appointed to serve as Chair.

4.3 The Chair and Vice-Chair shall be appointed by the Dean upon consultation with the Executive Com-mittee.

4.4 The Chair shall preside over the meetings of the Board and of the Executive Committee. The Vice- Chair shall preside in the absence of the Chair.

4.5 The Executive Committee advises the Dean of the School and Vice Provost of Research in matters such as Board membership, Task Force formation, selection of the Task Force chairs, and bylaws changes.

ARTICLE 5. Meetings

The Board shall meet in person twice a year, generally once in the fall and once in the spring. The Executive Committee may hold additional in-person or virtual meetings as needed. Notice of the meetings shall be sent at least three weeks prior to the meeting date.

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ARTICLE 6. Task Forces

Task Forces shall be formed to address specific issues or reach specific objectives, and make recommenda-tions to the Board. Each Task Force initially shall be active for one year, after which it can be renewed for additional years as needed by a vote of the members of the BOV.

ARTICLE 7. Adoption and Amendment

The bylaws shall be adopted and may be amended by a two-thirds majority of those in attendance at any regular meeting of the Board at which a quorum is present. A quorum is defined as forty percent or more of the membership of the Board.

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Recent Basic Sciences News Articles

Carrasco to lead Department of Molecular Physiolo-gy and Biophysicsby Leigh MacMillan Aug. 21, 2018, 7:36 PM

Dr. Nancy Carrasco, a leading figure in the study of iodide transport and its critical role in the thyroid and mammary glands, has been named chair of Vanderbilt University’s Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics.

Carrasco is expected to join the Vanderbilt faculty in spring 2019. She is currently the C.N.H. Long Professor of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Yale University.

“Dr. Carrasco is widely recognized not only as an outstanding scientist, teacher and mentor, but also as a dynamic and effective leader,” Chan-cellor Nicholas S. Zeppos said. “We are thrilled that she will be joining our faculty as we continue to advance discovery and train the next gen-eration of leaders in this essential field.”The Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics is one of the top five physiology departments in the country in funding support from the National Institutes of Health.

“Dr. Carrasco’s vision and experience make her the ideal leader to carry forward the remarkable track record of pathbreaking discovery, doc-toral and postdoctoral training, and cross-disciplinary collaboration for which the Vanderbilt University Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics is known,” Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Susan R. Wente said. “Her pioneering research has already had tremen-dous impact in advancing understanding of key public health issues, including breast cancer and the impact of certain pollutants on nursing infants, which are just the kinds of real-world impacts our scientists seek

to make every day at Vanderbilt.”

Carrasco was the first to isolate the coding DNA for the iodide transporter protein (called NIS) that pulls iodide from the bloodstream into the thyroid gland. “Her work on the iodide transporter has been seminal and absolutely critical for understanding not only an important step in thyroid hormone biosynthesis, but also for understanding the mechanism of action of certain environmental pollutants,” Lawrence Marnett, dean of Basic Sciences for the School of Medicine, said. “She is a tremendous addition to our dynamic Ba-sic Sciences faculty and we look forward to welcoming her as chair and as a colleague.”

Iodide (a form of the element iodine) is required for the production of thyroid hormones, which regulate metabolism in almost all tissues and play crucial roles in the development and maturation of the nervous system, skeletal muscles and lungs. Infants who do not have the correct levels of thyroid hormones may have impaired cognitive development and intellectual disability.

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Carrasco’s findings include key mechanistic details about how the protein works, that it actively trans-ports the pollutant perchlorate, and that it is functionally expressed in lactating breast tissue and in breast cancer. Her studies have suggested that NIS-mediated transport of radioactive iodide — a mainstay in the treatment of thyroid cancer — might be a useful therapy for breast cancer.

Carrasco replaces Roger Cone, who left Vanderbilt in 2016 after leading the department for eight years. Roger Colbran has been acting as interim chair of the department.

“I’m especially grateful to Dr. Colbran, who has done a fantastic job as interim chair,” Marnett said. “I also want to thank the search committee for its excellent work in identifying Dr. Carrasco as the next leader of the department.”

“It was obvious during my visits that it is an extremely exciting time at Vanderbilt,” Carrasco said. “I was very impressed with the collegiality that I felt, and I am very excited about the opportunity to continue to build a department that is already recognized nationally and internationally for its scientific excellence.”“I look forward to playing a role in furthering the impact of this excellent department,” Carrasco said.

“Dr. Carrasco has a very exciting vision that will enhance the department’s historic strength for cut-ting-edge research across a range of diseases and conditions, extending this important work in new ways that will increase the department’s interactions with other areas across the university and medical center,” said Jeff Balser, M.D., president and chief executive officer of Vanderbilt University Medical Center and dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

Carrasco received her M.D. and master’s degree in biochemistry from the National Autonomous University of Mexico in her native Mexico City and completed postdoctoral training at the Roche Institute of Molec-ular Biology. She joined the faculty at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1987 and Yale School of Medi-cine in 2011.

She has received numerous national and international awards, including the Pew Award in the Biomedical Sciences, Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation Award, Maria Sibylla Merian Award, Merck Prize from the European Thyroid Association and Light of Life Award. She has served as president of the Society of Latin American Biophysicists and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2015.

Carrasco is married to Samuel Zyman, M.D., whom she met on the first day of medical school. After com-pleting medical school, Zyman pursued master’s and doctoral degrees in music composition. He is a com-poser and faculty member at The Juilliard School. The couple has a son, Erik Zyman, who recently complet-ed his doctoral studies in Linguistics and joined the faculty of the University of Chicago.

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Gould awarded $10K prize for achievement in researchby Kara Furlong Aug. 24, 2018, 9:00 AM

Vanderbilt’s most prestigious faculty honor for accomplishments in research, scholarship or creative ex-pression was awarded to Kathleen Gould during Fall Faculty Assembly Aug. 23.

Gould, the Louise B. McGavock Chair, professor of cell and developmen-tal biology, and associate dean for biomedical sciences, received the Earl Sutherland Prize for Achievement in Research.

Gould’s research focuses on the division of cells, the fundamental unit of all living things. She is one of the world’s foremost scientists working on the last step in cell division—the separation of cells. When this process goes wrong, cells die or cancer occurs.

“Without any doubt, Kathy is a superstar—brilliant scholar, extraordinary teacher, outstanding institutional citizen,” Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos said. Ian Macara, Louise B. McGavock Chair, professor of cell and develop-mental biology and chair of the department, accepted the award on her behalf at the Student Life Center ceremony.

Gould’s research has led to the publication of more than 130 peer-reviewed papers, numerous works placed in top-ranked journals, and many honors and awards. In 1992 she won the prestigious Searle Scholar Award, only

the sixth Vanderbilt faculty member to have received this honor in its 36-year history. She was awarded the Boehringer Ingelheim New Investigator Award in 1992, elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and appointed as an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a position she held for 19 years.

At Vanderbilt, Gould has won the John H. Exton Award for research and an Excellence in Teaching award. She has given scores of talks at institutions and conferences around the world, and her research work has appeared in multiple top-ranked journals, including Developmental Cell, ELife, PNAS, J Cell Biol and Genes & Development. She was named Vanderbilt’s SEC Faculty Achievement Award winner for 2018.

The Sutherland Prize includes a cash award of $10,000 and an engraved pewter julep cup. In addition, Gould’s name will be engraved alongside past Sutherland Prize winners on a silver bowl that she will pos-sess for one year.

Gould was one of 10 award recipients during Fall Faculty Assembly. The others were Brian Heuser, Jessica Kennedy, Herbert Marbury, Clare McCabe, Douglas Shadle, Steven Townsend, Michael Vandenbergh, Jona-than Gilligan and Colin Walsh. Members of the faculty with 25 consecutive years of service also were recog-nized and will receive a chair with the Vanderbilt logo and a brass plate engraved with their name.

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New faculty chair in Vanderbilt’s Basic Sciences created in memory of biochemist Richard Armstrongby Seth Robertson Aug. 29, 2018, 5:16 PM

A $1 million gift to Vanderbilt University has established a new faculty chair named in honor of the late bio-chemist Richard Armstrong, whose groundbreaking work formed a basis for understanding the enzymatic function of antibiotic resistance.

The Richard N. Armstrong, Ph.D. Chair for In-novation in Biochemistry, which will support a faculty researcher in the Department of Bio-chemistry within the School of Medicine’s Basic Sciences, was endowed by Armstrong’s family. It is one of 18 chairs created through the yearlong, university-wide Chancellor’s Chair Challenge, in which Vanderbilt pledged to match each commit-ment of $1 million or more with $1 million from its endowment.

“This is the first major gift for Basic Sciences and the first donor-supported chair during my tenure,” said Lawrence J. Marnett, who has served as dean of Basic Sciences since 2016 and is also the Mary Ged-des Stahlman Professor of Cancer Research. “Endowed chairs provide the necessary funding to advance research and discovery, and are critical for retaining and attracting the best faculty. I’m very grateful to the Armstrong family for this impactful gift.”

Richard Armstrong, professor of biochemistry and chemistry, died in 2015 at age 66. A member of the Vanderbilt faculty since 1995, he was internationally known for his contributions to understanding detox-ification enzymes—proteins that break down foreign and potentially harmful chemicals, drugs and other molecules. Among other potential applications, his work could lead to new ways to prevent bacterial resis-tance to antibiotics.

“This gift honors my father’s love of biochemical research,” said his daughter Katie Armstrong. “He was dedicated to the idea that asking new questions about cellular processes could in turn yield very important discoveries. We are so proud of his legacy and delighted to name this chair in memory of his distinguished career and life.”

Armstrong was an elected fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Chemical Society. Other honors included the ACS’s Repligen Award for Chemistry of Biologi-cal Processes and Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, as well as the Stanley Cohen Award for Outstanding Con-tributions to Research given by the faculty of Vanderbilt’s School of Medicine. Armstrong also served as editor-in-chief of the influential journal Biochemistry, and held a foreign adjunct professorship at the famed Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

“Richard’s extensive research career influenced so many others, not just at Vanderbilt but across the wider biochemistry community,” said John York, professor and chair of the Department of Biochemistry and holder of the Natalie Overall Warren Chair. “He was a tireless and enthusiastic steward for biochemical research, and I’m excited that this new chair will continue his legacy and encourage further innovation.”

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Three VU doctoral students receive 2018 Gilliam Fel-lowships for Advanced Study

by Jalen Blue Aug. 1, 2018, 8:56 PM

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has awarded 2018 Gilliam Fellowships for Advanced Study to three Vanderbilt University doctoral students and their advisers.

The fellowship was created to ensure that a diverse and highly trained work-force is prepared to assume leadership roles in the sciences. The program ap-proaches this by supporting promising graduate students from groups that are underrepresented in science and helping their thesis advisers build inclusive train-ing environments.

Jordan Brown, a Ph.D. student in phar-macology, and adviser J. David Sweatt, Allan D. Bass Professor of Pharmacology; Francis Cambronero, a Ph.D. student in neuroscience, and adviser Angela Jef-ferson, professor of neurology; and Tolu Omokehinde, a Ph.D. student in cancer

biology, and adviser Rachelle Johnson, assistant professor of medicine, are among 45 student-adviser pairs recognized nationally in 2018 for increasing diversity among the next generation of scientific leaders. These graduate students have “demonstrated high promise to become leaders in their field,” said David Asai, HHMI’s senior director for science education.

Each doctoral student-adviser pair will receive an annual award totaling $50,000— including a stipend, a training allowance and an institutional allowance—for up to three years. Through the fellowship, advisers will have access to mentor development activities, online trainings and in-person workshops aimed at de-veloping their mentoring abilities and helping them better support the growth of their student’s research and professional skills. A portion of the award is also dedicated to supporting activities that foster diversity and inclusion in the advisers’ labs and departments.

“Vanderbilt is highly committed to recruiting and retaining exceptional and diverse graduate students who will become the scientific leaders of tomorrow,” said Larry Marnett, dean of basic sciences at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. “Creating an inclusive and supportive environment in which they can learn and grow is our highest priority. These fellowships reflect that commitment and will help advance our mis-sion to increase diversity and inclusion in biomedical science.”

The Gilliam Fellowship for Advanced Study was created in honor of the late James H. Gilliam Jr., a respect-ed business and civic leader who spent his life nurturing excellence and diversity in science and education.

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Rothamel selected as Vanderbilt Prize Student ScholarOct. 25, 2018, 9:07 AM

by Bill Snyder

Katherine Rothamel, a PhD student in the Department of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, has been selected as the 2017 Vanderbilt Prize Student Scholar.

She will be mentored by Lynne Maquat, PhD, an internationally known scientist at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry who received the 2017 Vanderbilt Prize in Biomedi-cal Science.

Rothamel will be recognized during Maquat’s Flexner Discovery Lecture on Nov. 29.

Established in 2006, the Vanderbilt Prize honors women scientists with a “stellar record” of research accomplishments who have made significant contributions to mentoring other women in sci-ence. Recipients mentor female graduate students — Vanderbilt Prize Student Scholars — who are pursuing their doctorates in the biomedical sciences in the School of Medicine.

Rothamel received her Bachelor of Science degree in Neuroscience from Brown University in 2010 and was a research assistant at Harvard Medical School before entering the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program at Vanderbilt in 2014.

She was nominated by her graduate studies mentor, Manuel Ascano, PhD, assistant professor of Biochem-istry, who described her as “an exceptional graduate student with the talent and potential to become an outstanding young scientist.”

Rothamel has published 13 peer-reviewed articles in major journals including Science, Cell, Nature Communi-cations, and Nature Immunology.

To be eligible for the Vanderbilt Prize Student Scholar, candidates must be enrolled in the medical school’s PhD track (includes PhD and MD/PhD trainees), have completed the qualifying exam and have at least one year left to complete the PhD degree.

Nominations are accepted from department chairs or program directors in the biomedical sciences, as well as from directors of graduate studies and faculty mentors.

Competitive nominees demonstrate excellent leadership qualities through their research and service to the scientific community as well as characteristics that exhibit outstanding potential to impact medicine through research during their careers.

For more information on the Vanderbilt Prize Student Scholar, visit https://www.vumc.org/oor/vander-bilt-prize-student-scholar.

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Grant enhances study of new chemotherapy targets

Oct. 18, 2018, 9:05 AM

by Tom Wilemon

Vanderbilt chemists have been awarded $7.2 million over the next five years from the National Cancer Insti-tute to lead an initiative to better understand how a combination chemotherapy for breast cancer targets DNA.

Michael Stone, PhD, Carmelo Rizzo, PhD, and Martin Egli, PhD, will research the chemical biology of gua-nine alkylation that occurs with cyclophosphamide and doxorubicin, a treatment often referred to as AC chemotherapy regimen. The chemotherapies are mainstay treatments that have been in clinical use for de-cades, and there are well-established ideas of how they damage DNA of cancer cells. However, side effects can limit their effectiveness.

“It’s thought that cyclophosphamide and doxorubicin act on different targets independently, but we suspected that they can act synergistically,” said Rizzo, professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and a researcher with Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC). “We were able to come up with initial chemical evidence for this idea. The grant is based on this. If they do act synergistically, this could lead to new drugs designed to take advantage of this new mechanism.”

At this point, the research initiative is directed at basic science and does not include clinical trials, but bet-ter understanding how AC chemotherapy regimen interacts with DNA could ultimately lead to adjustments in dosages and the order by which the individual drugs are given that could lessen the potential for long-term harmful side effects.

“One of the ways that doxorubicin interacts with DNA is that it slips between base pairs, sort of like a pen-ny between a roll of quarters,” said Egli, a professor of Biochemistry and VICC researcher. “The assumption was that the glycone, which is the sugar part of the doxorubicin drug, interacts with base pairs from the major groove side in a non-covalent fashion. However, endogenous formaldehyde abundantly present in our bodies might result in a covalent interaction between DNA and doxorubicin that would fundamentally alter how the drug interferes with information transfer and proteins that bind to and/or process DNA.”

Doxorubicin has also been shown to interfere with topoisomerases, enzymes involved in cell division.

“Now, it’s generally thought that the mechanism of action of doxorubicin in these chemotherapeutic regimens involves disruption of cell division by interfering with topoisomerases,” said Stone, professor of Chemistry and VICC researcher. “With our proposal, we have kind of gone full circle and said, ‘Wait a min-ute, maybe we need to go back to the interactions with DNA.’”

Research partners on the grant include Robert Turesky, PhD, of the University of Minnesota and Stephen Lloyd, PhD, and Amanda McCullough, PhD, both of Oregon Health and Science University.