2020-2021 Department of Medicine Annual Report by Vanderbilt University Medical Center Department of Medicine

2020-2021 Academic Year

Department of Medicine Annual Report 1161 21st Ave. S. Nashville, TN 37232 | (615) 322-5000 | www.medicine.vumc.org

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Mission and Leadership..............................................................................................................................................................................04 Chair Message..............................................................................................................................................................................................05 Our Numbers.................................................................................................................................................................................................06 Diversity and Inclusion Overview.............................................................................................................................................................08 Clinical Care Overview..................................................................................................................................................................................12 Education Overview......................................................................................................................................................................................18 Research Overview......................................................................................................................................................................................20 Professional Development Overview.......................................................................................................................................................24 Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.....................................................................................................................................28 Cardiovascular Medicine............................................................................................................................................................................34 Clinical Pharmacology.................................................................................................................................................................................40 Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metablism................................................................................................................................................46 Epidemiology.................................................................................................................................................................................................50 Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition........................................................................................................................................54 Genetic Medicine.........................................................................................................................................................................................58 Geriatric Medicine........................................................................................................................................................................................62 Hematology and Oncology.........................................................................................................................................................................66 Infectious Diseases......................................................................................................................................................................................70 Internal Medicine and Public Health........................................................................................................................................................74 Nephrology and Hypertension..................................................................................................................................................................80 Rheumatology and Immunology................................................................................................................................................................84 Giving...............................................................................................................................................................................................................87 Published by the Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center COPYEDITING AND DESIGN Krystyna Barnard

PHOTOGRAPHY VUMC News and Communications

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OUR MISSION Our mission is to inspire interest in the prevention of disease and the promotion of human health, to cultivate biomedical discovery, and educate tomorrow’s leaders for internal medicine. We especially seek those physicians who provide compassionate care while translating new knowledge into meaningful improvements in health outcome. This application of science to medicine is enhanced by interdisciplinary collaboration, fiscal responsibility, advancement of social and intellectual diversity, commitment to self-learning, and a professionalism dedicated to teamwork and collegiality. These values promote the best interests of internal medicine at Vanderbilt and further strengthen our social contract with the community we serve.

OUR LEADERSHIP CHAIR Kimryn Rathmell, MD, PhD

VICE CHAIRS Walter Clair, MD, MPH Vice Chair, Diversity and Inclusion Jill Gilbert, MD Vice Chair, Professional Development John McPherson, MD Vice Chair, Education Cecelia Theobald, MD, MPH Vice Chair, Clinical Affairs Roy Zent, MBBCh, PhD Vice Chair, Research

Tom Elasy, MD Internal Medicine and Public Health Jane Freedman, MD Cardiovascular Medicine David G. Harrison, MD Clinical Pharmacology T. Alp Ikizler, MD Nephrology and Hypertension Harvey Murff, MD, MPH Geriatric Medicine Ben Ho Park, MD, PhD Hematology and Oncology Richard M Peek, Jr., MD Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition

DIVISION DIRECTORS

Alvin Powers, MD Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism

David Aronoff, MD Infectious Diseases

Wei Zheng, MD, PhD, MPH Epidemiology

Timothy Blackwell, MD Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine

FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION

Nancy Cox, PhD Genetic Medicine Leslie Crofford, MD Rheumatology and Immunology 04 |

Derek Miller, MBA, MHA Chief of Finance and Administration

CHAIR MESSAGE The past year has been one of tremendous change for the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Department of Medicine. In many ways, COVID-19 played a central role in our lives, and we will surely tie this time to the pandemic, and remember the myriad of ways that it shaped our world. However, as you will see in this Annual Review, we achieved much more as a Department of Medicine.

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I HAVE NO DOUBT IN THE CAPACITY OF THIS DEPARTMENT... TO BE CHANGE AGENTS THAT WILL RESHAPE THE VISION OF MODERN MEDICINE.

In the following pages, we attempt to encapsulate the millions of activities that made groundbreaking research come to fruition; enabled the creation of centers of excellence; showed the depths of our care for patients; shared our knowledge and insights with learners from undergraduate to faculty levels; and challenged the status quo of health equity, racial and ethnic diversity, and what it means to be inclusive in our daily work. All of this brought about the coordination and communication that allowed us to achieve bigger advances. I have no doubt in the capacity of this department, with it’s extremely talented faculty and staff, to be change agents that will reshape the vision of modern medicine. We are finding ourselves in a remarkably expanded space, with a greatly expanded footprint of care delivery that now encompasses the mid-South and beyond, and in a technology era that brings the entire world to our desktops and allows us to meet our patients where they need us whether that is in one of our facilities, in their local hospital, in their home, or through their phone. The future is exciting and bright, and we are ready. I could not be more proud to be a part of this incredible group.

Kimryn Rathmell, MD, PhD Professor and Chair, Department of Medicine Physician-in-Chief, Vanderbilt University Adult Hospital and Clinics Vanderbilt University Medical Center

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OUR NUMBERS

SUBSPECIALTY DIVISIONS

994

FACULTY COMPRISED OF 52% WOMEN AND 48% MEN

$240M IN NIH FUNDING

RANKED IN NIH FUNDING BY THE BLUE RIDGE INSTITUTE

$300M OPERATING BUDGET

#20

IN U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT BEST HOSPITALS HONOR ROLL 06 |

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DIVERSITY & INCLUSION OVERVIEW

WALTER CLAIR, MD, MPH Professor of Medicine (Cardiovascular Medicine) Vice Chair, Diversity and Inclusion

During this past academic year, the Department of Medicine channeled its many resources into complementing and, in some instances, leading VUMC’s efforts to respond to and mitigate the catastrophic morbidity and mortality brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Even as we recognized the pandemic’s exacerbation of preexisting disparities in diseases and health care, our attention was forcefully drawn to the legacy of structural violence in our society and the persistence of racial bias, discrimination and inequity. This resulted in an institutional reassessment and elevation of VUMC’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Many in our department participated enthusiastically in the hard work of change and expressed their acknowledgement that that the medical profession and its various specialties and subspecialties cannot claim immunity to bias, bigotry and exclusion. Many recognized that even modern academic medical centers are unintentional contributors to the persistence of racialized access to care that contributes to health disparities and other injustices. Having been at VUMC since 2006, I have witnessed the improved gender diversity in our institutional leadership, medical school and training programs. Additionally, there has been a significant increase in racial and ethnic diversity in our more recent medical school classes. The residency and fellowship programs in the Department of Medicine and other VUMC clinical departments have benefitted from this pipeline effort.

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...[E]VEN MODERN ACADEMIC MEDICAL CENTERS ARE UNINTENTIONAL CONTRIBUTORS TO THE PERSISTENCE OF RACIALIZED ACCESS TO CARE THAT CONTRIBUTES TO HEALTH DISPARITIES AND OTHER INJUSTICES.

It was in this setting that I made a personal decision to pursue the latest of several leadership roles at Vanderbilt. In January 2021, I assumed the position of Vice Chair for Diversity and Inclusion for the Department of Medicine because I felt that the commitment, resources and leadership of the Medical Center and our department were optimal for enhancing and refining a culture that promotes the recruitment, engagement, growth and retention of a diverse workforce within the Department of Medicine. We are just beginning a new phase in our pursuit of an optimally inclusive department. While we are making meaningful progress, I believe we can do more even if it requires getting into “Good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Professor of Medicine Vice Chair, Diversity and Inclusion

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Our Demographics

The demographic data of the Department of Medicine demonstrates a strong support for women at all levels of faculty status and rank in the department. However, the data also demonstrates a clear need for greater racial and ethnic diversity among faculty. This is particularly true for faculty who are underrepresented in medicine (URiM).

In recent years, the department has been considerably more successful in attracting residents with diverse backgrounds. In FY21, 25% of the resident class was selfidentified as URiM. The cohort recruited in the 2021 NRMP Match is 49% women and 35% self-identifying as URiM. This makes the current residency cohort the most diverse in the department’s history.

URiM Faculty in FY21

Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives

The department previously aligned its DEI efforts with those of VUMC and Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM), participating in Second Look Weekends for medical school and residency applicants, identifying a small group of “diversity liaisons” who attended meetings sponsored by the VUMC and VUSM Office of Diversity Affairs, and supporting a limited number of pipeline projects. In the last academic year, the department’s Chair, Dr. Rathmell, expanded the department’s diversity liaison pool by requesting that each division appoint one or more diversity liaisons to share responsibility for the diversity and anti-racism activities in its division. Departmental

Incoming URiM Residents

10 7

7 3 FY17

FY18

FY19

FY20

FY21

*Data representative of faculty and residents self-identified as URiM

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leaders participated in unconscious bias training sessions and “Narrative 4” (N4) story exchanges to enhance their listening and empathy skills. Individual divisions initiated book and journal clubs around issues of diversity and antiracism. Students, residents, renal fellows and faculty came together to end race correction of glomerular filtration rate in estimating kidney function. As a result of their efforts, the group received the 2021 Martin Luther King Award from VUSM and the School of Nursing. Faculty in the Genetics and Epidemiology divisions also conducted seminar series on anti-racism and health equity. Last year, the department hosted a special Medicine Grand Rounds entitled “How Structural Racism Affects Health and Health Care.” Consuelo Wilkins, MD, MSCI, Professor of Medicine (Geriatric Medicine), led a panel that included Tene Hamilton Franklin, MS; the Honorable Harold M. Love, Jr.; and John S. Sergent, MD (Rheumatology and Immunology). This set the stage for a number of 2020-2021 Medicine Grand Rounds that directly addressed issues of racism and health disparities. Additionally, the department sponsored a presentation by Arie Nettles, PhD, Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and Director of the Office of Inclusion and Health Equity at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, on unconscious bias that garnered more than 200 online participants. In the fall, Dr. Rathmell convened a Department of Medicine advisory committee and subsequently announced the appointment of Dr. Clair as the first Department of Medicine Vice Chair for Diversity and Inclusion. Since then, the role of the diversity liaisons has become more clearly defined, with a focus on empowering liaisons to serve as advocates and leaders in the department’s diversity and anti-racism efforts. Additionally, the number of liaisons has been expanded to include nurse practitioners and staff representatives. Meeting monthly and hearing from guest presenters, the diversity liaisons have been introduced to programs, concepts and issues related to their important role. They have also shared journal articles, books and social media resources on an internal Diversity Liaison website. The result has been a reinvigoration of ongoing division activities, including the Infectious Diseases Journal Club and the Nephrology Diversity Committee, as well as the initiation of new division focused efforts. In preparation for the next academic year, the diversity liaisons have been tasked with working with fellowship program directors to document the current status of diversity in the department’s fellowship positions, and to develop strategies to emulate the success that the Internal Medicine Residency Program has achieved in its diversity recruitment efforts. In an effort to encourage interest in the department’s specialties as students explore their career options, the Department of Medicine has provided financial and faculty mentorship support for “pipeline” endeavors such as the AspirnautTM Program, the Vanderbilt-Meharry James Puckette Carter Summer Scholarship Program and the Undergraduate Clinical Research Internship Program. This year, the department made a commitment to the VUSM Office for Diversity Affairs to provide financial assistance for two visiting URiM student externs each year. When the Medical Center launched its Racial Equity Task Force (RETF), many Department of Medicine staff, trainees and faculty served on its various committees and contributed meaningfully to its investigations, assessment and recommendations. The RETF submitted its numerous recommendations to VUMC leadership in December, and publicly released its final recommendations in June, which highlighted eight themes. The Department of Medicine’s efforts in DEI continue to be in alignment with each of the themes outlined by the task force. In the areas of gender parity and internal medicine residency program diversity, the department has had success that must now be demonstrated in other programs and positions in the department. The Department of Medicine currently has the leadership to take on this challenge. Going forward, the department will prioritize the use of its diversity liaisons to improve diversity in the fellowship programs and to support the faculty recruitment efforts of the division leaders. The department will continue the professional development of the diversity liaisons, and will work closely with VUMC and VUSM partners in this important work. Chief among those partners will be the department’s own Dr. Wilkins who was named VUMC’s Senior Vice President and Associate Dean for Health Equity and Inclusive Excellence.

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DIVERSITY LIAISON COMMITTEE

Walter Clair, MD, MPH Vice Chair, Diversity and Inclusion

Aimalohi Ahonkhai MD, MPH Infectious Diseases

Brian Christman MD Veterans Affairs

Melinda Aldrich MD, PhD Genetic Medicine

Cecilia Chung MD Rheumatology

Raymond Blind, PhD Diabetes/ Endocrinology

Ashley Blye APRN Cardiovascular

Nancy Cox Rosemarie Dudenhofer Maie El-Sourady MD, MSc PhD MD Internal Medicine Genetic Medicine Allergy/Pulmonary

James Jackson Rachelle Johnson Annet Kirabo Victor Legner PsyD PhD DVM, MSc, PhD MD Allergy/Pulmonary Clinical Pharmacology Clinical Pharmacology Geriatric Medicine

Christine Lovly Cieara McBride MD, PhD DOM Hematology/Oncology Administration

Sonya Reid MD Hematology/Oncology

Jane Case DNP, APRN-BC DOM Adminstration

Lisa Mendes MD Cardiovascular

Shabnam Sarker MD Gastroenterology

Derek Miller MBA, MHA DOM Administration

Deonna Taylor PhD Adult Ambulatory

Mark Glazer MD Cardiovascular

Loren Lipworth ScD Epidemiology

Ana Nobis Ben Ho Park MD MD, PhD Internal Medicine Hematology/Oncology

Ebele Umeukeje MD, MPH Nephrology

Chris Williams MD, PhD Nephrology | 11

CLINICAL CARE OVERVIEW The Department of Medicine comprises an incredibly wide-ranging array of clinical specialties, locations and individuals. Since joining Vanderbilt as a trainee, I have been awed by the breadth of fascinating people and conditions who find their way to our care. Some of our patients travel from around the world to receive cutting-edge therapy from international experts, and many view a trip to Vanderbilt as simply a routine part of their health care.

CECELIA THEOBALD, MD, MPH Associate Professor of Medicine (Internal Medicine) Vice Chair, Clinical Affiars

In FY21, we were challenged with meeting the ever-changing demands of an unpredictable global pandemic, while still fulfilling the needs of all our other patients. As always, the dedicated clinicians of the department exceeded expectations with their creativity and compassion. In the hospital, our inpatient teams quickly pivoted to care for critically ill COVID-19 patients without losing focus on evidence-based medicine. Department of Medicine clinicians unfailingly volunteered to serve an everchanging list of COVID needs at VUMC and in the broader community, stretching themselves in the name of service. In the outpatient setting, our primary care clinicians teamed up with specialists to open one of the first clinics in the country designed to treat long-term symptoms after COVID-19 infection. Through all this, we remained committed to delivering only the highest quality care, rapidly creating workgroups to generate and disseminate COVID-19 clinical update literature and implement realtime changes in clinical practice. While much of our focus was on COVID-19, we continued our dedication to serving the needs of a growing middle Tennessee population, adding new primary care locations in Sumner, Wilson, Coffee and Bedford counties, as well as right here in Nashville. We have resisted the tendency in modern health care to allow our care to become siloed within individual specialties or settings. Many of our clinicians continued to provide care in both the inpatient and outpatient settings, allowing them to integrate and innovate on care transitions and ensure that our patients feel cared for wherever their health care journey takes them. Across the board, our clinicians are anchored on service, ensuring that they integrate their clinical practice with the teaching and research arms of our mission. While certainly an unprecedented strain, the COVID-19 pandemic also served to stimulate the best in our teams. I am continually inspired by the dedication, adaptability and clinical acumen of our faculty, and it is an honor and joy to lead such an outstanding group of talented clinicians.

Associate Professor of Medicine Vice Chair, Clinical Affairs

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OUR IMPACT Caring for Tennesseans

The Department of Medicine provides care in 19 counties throughout Tennessee 14

19 18

9 17

15 4 6

Davidson County

Hamilton County

11 Maury County

16 Sumner County

Bedford County

Knox County

12 Montgomery County

17 Wayne County

Cheatham County

8 Lawrence County

13 Putnam County

18 Williamson County

Lewis County

14 Robertson County

19 Wilson County

10 Marshall County

15 Rutherford County

4 5

Cumberland County

Inpatient Discharges

In FY21, the Department of Medicine had over 16,000 unique inpatient discharges from patients in 44 states

Outpatient Visits

In FY21, the Department of Medicine had over 1.4 million total outpatient clinic visits from patients across the United States

10-99

500-999

1-99

250-499

1,000-49,000

1-9

100-499

1,000+

100-249

500-999

50,000+

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Lisa Yun, MD, internal medicine resident, in the COVID ICU

Top: Todd Rice, MD (Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine) receives the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine Bottom: Rachel Apple, MD (General Internal Medicine and Public Health)

Like hospitals and clinics around the world, Vanderbilt was the busiest it has ever been in the last year. We continued to improve the health of patients in Nashville, surrounding counties and neighboring states. In FY21, we had nearly 850,000 outpatient clinic visits, more than 75,000 tele-medicine visits, and over 20,000 unique inpatient discharges from the United States and surrounding territories. We developed – and enhanced – a number of unique services that included the opening of a COVID Infusion Clinic, scaling our telemedicine efforts and launching a new eConsult initiative. The Department of Medicine practices in 189 hospitals, clinics and dialysis centers, throughout Davidson County. Regionally, Department of Medicine providers delivered care in 56 clinics, including Vanderbilt Integrated Providers practices. New and expanded locations are expected in FY22 in surrounding Williamson, Montgomery and Cheatham counties, and Kentucky. As a result of our efforts, VUMC ranked No. 20 in the U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals Honor Roll. Additionally, the Department of Medicine had several high performing specialties, including Rheumatology (14), Cardiology (17), Pulmonology and Lung Surgery (17), Geriatrics (27), Diabetes and Endocrinology (31) and Oncology (44). In FY21, Department of Medicine clinicians and clinics won nearly half of all patient experience awards conferred across VUMC. This recognition, coupled with our national rankings, reflect the hard work, dedication and adaptability of our providers to deliver outstanding, quality care even in the most challenging of circumstances.

COVID-19 Care

As COVID numbers and the demand for support in our hospitals and clinics increased, our providers eagerly volunteered to fill the need in the COVID-ICU, in our walk-in clinics and in the neighboring Vanderbilt Wilson County Hospital. 14 |

In total, we had more than 230,000 COVID-related visits across 11 walk-in sites, and more than 2,100 individual hospitalizations for COVID-19. The COVID Monoclonal Infusion Clinic, led by Karen Bloch, MD, MPH (Infectious Diseases), provided IV antibodies to COVID-19 outpatients considered to be high risk for hospitalization or severe illness. As COVID began to resurge in the early summer, the clinic quickly expanded its capacity from 24 patients per day, totaling 120 patients per week, to 40 patients per day, which resulted in 200 patients per week receiving treatment. As a result, more than 3,800 unique patients have received the one-time infusion treatment since the clinic’s inception in November 2020. Of those patients, nearly 50% had VUMC Primary Care Providers. In further pursuit to improve the health of our patients and community, colleagues in the Office of Health Equity, led by Consuelo Wilkins, MD, MSCI (Geriatric Medicine), established a COVID-19 Health Equity Workstream that used race, ethnicity and language (REAL) data to identify, reduce and possibly prevent health disparities in the community. A summary of their work, “A Systems Approach to Addressing Covid-19 Health Inequities,” was published online in NEJM Catalyst. Additionally, colleagues throughout the department continued to uphold their commitment to the research mission. VUMC’s approach was to consider uncertainty about which treatment was best as an opportunity to improve knowledge by offering patients participation in randomized clinical trials. VUMC clinicians helped lead more than 25 Phase II and Phase III clinical trials related to COVID-19, enrolling more than 1,000 VUMC patients. Eight of VUMC’s completed COVID-19 trials in FY21 were led by Principal Investigators (PI) and Co-PIs in the Department of Medicine, including: • Aaron Aday, MD, MS (Cardiovascular Medicine), “Antithrombotic Therapy to Ameliorate Complications of COVID-19 (ATTACC)” • Spyros Kalams, MD (Infectious Diseases), “Moderna Vaccine TrialA Study to Evaluate Efficacy, Safety, and Immunogenicity of mRNA-1273 Vaccine in Adults Aged 18 Years and Older to Pre-vent COVID-19” • Todd Rice, MD (Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine) • “Protocol EIDD-2801-2004: The Safety of EIDD2801 and Its Effect on Viral Shedding” • “Passive Immunity Trial of Nashville (PassItOn)” • “A Phase 2, Randomized, Double-blind, Placebocontrolled Study to Evaluate the Safety and Antiviral Activity of BLD- 2660 in Hospitalized

Establishing a COVID Health Equity Workstream

Using REAL data to identify and prevent health inequities The COVID-19 pandemic exposed and exacerbated longstanding drivers of health inequities, disproportionately impacting racial and ethnic minorities. Recognizing this, VUMC embedded strategies to mitigate health inequities in its COVID-19 Command Center early in the pandemic. Led by the Office of Health Equity (OHE), an inter-professional COVID Health Equity Team comprised of physicians, nurses, social workers and operational leaders with expertise in minority health, social determinants of health, quality improvement, public health, health communication, clinical research, diversity and inclusion, and telehealth, was assembled. This team was critical to using a systems-based approach to address the complex drivers of COVID-19 inequities. Quality race, ethnicity and language (REAL) data are fundamental to understanding inequities. However, these data are often missing or insufficient. A principal strategy in the work of the Health Equity Workstream was to use the most reliable REAL data available in eStar to disaggregate data, while simultaneously working to improve the quality and accuracy of REAL data. The latter has been a long-standing priority of OHE that was pushed to the forefront during the pandemic. The creation of interactive dashboards populated with data for all patients tested for SARS-CoV-2 at VUMC facilitated disaggregation of metrics by race, ethnicity, primary language and ZIP code. These data were also linked to community-level socioeconomic data to understand disparities in testing, positivity rates, hospitalizations, treatment and death. For example, to understand the social and environmental context for patients most impacted by inequities, the Health Equity Workstream mapped the ZIP codes of patients who tested positive, and found the highest number of cases in two adjacent ZIP codes. In these ZIP codes, more than 30% of residents’ primary language is not English, and the average adjusted gross income is $36,384 compared with the county average of $56,507. By disaggregating data by REAL, and implementing strategies informed by social context, VUMC may prevent or lessen health inequities and be better positioned to address underlying contributors to health.

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Subjects with Recently Diagnosed COVID-19 Compared to Standard of Care Treatment” • “BREATHe: Gimsilumab for the treatment of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infec-tion” • “Pragmatic Trial Exploring Impact of Patient Positioning in the Management of Patients Infected with COVID-19: Supine vs. Prone” • Russell Rothman, MD (General Internal Medicine), “Healthcare Worker Exposure Response and Outcomes of Hydroxychloroquine Trial (HERO-HCQ Trial)” These trials identified effective treatments (remdesivir, baricitinib, therapeutic anticoagulation for patients on the hospital ward, monoclonal antibodies for outpatients) and ineffective therapies (hydroxychloroquine, monoclonal antibodies for inpatients, convalescent plasma, self-proning). Department of Medicine physician leaders also recognized a need to quickly evaluate and disseminate the rapidly changing evidence about clinical evaluation and treatment of COVID-19. Beginning in March 2020, clinicians, researchers and administrative leaders from Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Rheumatology and Pharmacy formed a multidisciplinary team to review and collate the best evidence in the treatment of COVID-19, and then distribute to clinicians on a weekly basis. Whenever areas of uncertainty existed, VUMC’s official clinical guidance steered patients and clinicians away from unproven treatments and toward the many available randomized clinical trials evaluating COVID-19 therapies at VUMC. In March 2021, the Department of Medicine opened the Adult Post-Acute COVID Clinic, designed to coordinate assessment and treatment for Post-Acute COVID Syndrome across a diverse range of medical and other specialties. New data suggests that more than one third of individuals who recover from COVID-19 experience symptoms more than three months from diagnosis. Led by Sara Martin, MD (General Internal Medicine and Public Health), this unique clinic provides comprehensive assessment followed by connections to key department specialists and referrals to COVIDspecific rehabilitation therapy for those experiencing long-term sequelae after COVID infection. In partnership with the well-established ICU Recovery Center at VUMC, this provides patients in middle Tennessee, and beyond, a unique opportunity to be supported for this novel disorder.

Telemedicine Innovation

As in person hospital and clinic visits slowed as a result of the pandemic, Vanderbilt rapidly scaled its use of telemedicine to ensure continuity of care for patients. Michelle Griffith, MD (Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism), helped oversee the operational approach of telemedicine for the Department of Medicine. Over 75,000 telehealth visits were completed by the department, which made up 38% of VUMC’s total telehealth visits in FY21. Divisions rapidly developed internal guidelines for changing patients to telehealth appointments, which addressed both acute and chronic care visits. The divisions of General Internal Medicine and Public Health, Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, and Rheumatology made up over 58% of the department’s total telemedicine visits. Several faculty contributed to early peer education, troubleshooting efforts and the sharing of best practices, including Drs. Sara Horst (Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition), Daniel Cottrell and Cecelia Theobald (General Internal Medicine and Public Health), with guidance from Dr. Griffith and other members of the telehealth team. The department continues to promote continued use of telehealth and care innovation.

Pay for Performance Metrics

Our outpatient primary care clinics monitored several preventive care quality metrics including cancer screenings, chronic disease management and wellness screenings. Nationally, 2020 saw significant declines in cancer screenings and other preventive health measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Department of Medicine clinical teams worked diligently and proactively, and succeeded in minimizing these shortfalls, ending the year achieving nine of our thirteen outpatient quality metrics. For 2021, we added additional outpatient topics in focus, including ambulatory advanced care planning. Furthermore, our clinics have been tirelessly working to promote vaccination against COVID-19 and succeeded in ensuring full vaccination for over 60% of our primary care patients, compared to 45% of all adults in Tennessee, by the end of the fiscal year in June 2021.

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Patient receives COVID-19 antibody treatment in VUMC’s COVID Monoclonal Infusion Clinic

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EDUCATION OVERVIEW

JOHN MCPHERSON, MD Professor of Medicine (Cardiovascular Medicine) Vice Chair, Education Program Director, Internal Medicine Residency

The Department of Medicine provides state-of-the-art postgraduate training to residents and fellows in every subspecialty within internal medicine. In addition to our residency programs in internal medicine and medicine-pediatrics, the department has 15 ACGME-accredited fellowships as well as several non-accredited fellowships in disciplines ranging from obesity medicine to cardio-oncology. The Vanderbilt Internal Medicine Residency Program has been producing distinguished physicians and scientists since 1925. We currently train 135 residents at VUMC and at the oncampus Nashville Veterans Administration (VA) Hospital. Our overarching mission is to train a diverse group of future leaders in academic medicine who will improve the human condition through the practice of medicine, education, research and service. Embedded in our efforts is the desire to provide academic rigor to our trainees in a supportive environment. Despite the significant challenges to the training environment faced due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we enjoyed many successes and continued to innovate during the 2020-2021 academic year. Under the leadership of Medicine-Pediatrics Program Director Sandi Moutsios, MD (General Internal Medicine and Public Health), a group of 30 residents and faculty worked throughout the year to overhaul our curriculum and assessment system, revise the goals, learning objectives, educational strategies, and assessments for every inpatient and outpatient assignment. Dr. Moutsios is internationally known for her work in this area, and our new system sets the standard for assessment in medical education. Jill Jones, MD (Genteral Internal Medicine and Public Health), led a group effort to create important quality metrics for our residents in their outpatient clinics. Her group created a competition among the residents on cancer screening metrics, and we observed significant increases in screening rates among residents and also supervising faculty. Based on this success, we are now expanding the metrics and the competition this fall. We are pleased that all of our residents are now able to access their own data on their clinical effectiveness with guided mentoring for continuous improvement and optimal patient care. As with all residency programs, the COVID-19 pandemic continued to significantly impact our program in the 2020-21 academic year. In March 2020, an additional critical care service was created and staffed with our residents on a largely volunteer basis through January 2021. While the increased workload from surges of hospitalized COVID-19 patients impacted our program, the entire VUMC community worked seamlessly to ensure that no one program was disproportionately affected. Through 2020, we continued the virtual format of our teaching conferences and facilitated engagement through new interactive formats. When we resumed our in-person conferences in spring 2021, we maintained these new formats for more effective learning. Despite adopting an entirely new, virtual format, our 2020-2021 resident recruitment season was a wonderful success. In preparation, we created a chief resident-led Recruitment Committee which advised us on best practices for virtual social events, interview day structure and content; and we created a Resident Selection Committee comprised of a diverse group of 25 faculty. We utilized a holistic review process for the residency applications in order to de-emphasize potentially biased metrics. From a pool of over 3,300 candidates, we interviewed 500 applicants for 45 available PGY-1 positions. We remained highly competitive with the top internal medicine programs in the country. Our 2021 Match class was the most diverse in program history: 49% of the matched applicants were women and 35% of the matched applicants selfidentified as URiM from a national applicant pool that was 44% female and 15%

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URiM. In addition, we matched eight MD/PhDs, three international medical graduates and we observed improved geographic diversity. Overall, our residency program includes 135 categorical Internal Medicine residents, 24 MedicinePediatrics residents and 16 preliminary year PGY-1 residents. The categorical residents are 46% female, and 25% selfidentify as underrepresented in medicine. Our categorical residents are from 65 different medical schools in every region of the United States, as well as from four international schools in Colombia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey. Many of our residents have multiple advanced degrees, including 15 residents with PhD degrees. Nearly 70% of our residents have been elected in to either the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society or the Gold Humanism Honor Society.

Professor of Medicine Vice Chair, Education Program Director, Internal Medicine Residency

Developing Physician-Scientists

Our program has one of the largest and most mature Physician-Scientist Training Programs (PSTP) in the country. Established in 1999, the PSTP is a six- to seven-year program that combines residency training in internal medicine with subspecialty fellowship training designed for physicians committed to research-based careers in academic medicine. In the 2020-2021 academic year, there were 33 trainees enrolled in the program. Each year, five to seven categorical residents enter the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Research Pathway to facilitate combined clinical and research training for physicians committed to careers in academic medicine. Training is enhanced by membership in the Tinsley Randolf Harrison Society, which enhances peer mentoring and facilitates networking with successful physicianscientists. In 2021, Harrison Society members completed the ABIM Research Pathway.

Developing Clinician-Educators

Open to all residents, the Excellence in Teaching (EXCITE) Pathway is a longitudinal curriculum to develop residents’ knowledge and skills in medical education and teaching. Residents participate in workshops that cover core topics and participate in curriculum design and problem-based learning sessions. EXCITE members are assigned a specific faculty mentor to facilitate and promote ongoing professional development. This rigorous curriculum will prepare residents to be distinguished teachers and educators in their future fields. Approximately 30% of our graduating residents completed this program in 2021. The 2021 Doximity Residency Navigator recently ranked our program 12th among internal medicine residency programs in the United States. Our program exposes residents to a full array of experiences in all areas of internal medicine. Vanderbilt residents manage large numbers of patients with a vast array of complex medical conditions in an environment that emphasizes resident autonomy, bedside teaching, science and a physiologybased approach to medicine. Residents spend approximately two-thirds of their training on inpatient rotations that include four to six months of critical care and several inpatient subspecialty services. Approximately 70% of our trainees enter subspecialty fellowship training after their residency. A high proportion of our residents pursue academic careers as physician-scientists or clinician-educators, and nearly all residents produce at least one academic product as the result of research performed during residency. Residents cite their sense of camaraderie as one of our program’s greatest strengths. We attract a diverse group of talented residents from around the world, and the unique environment at Vanderbilt facilitates the development of close friendships among the residents, faculty and their families. We are very proud of our residency program, and we consider it to be among the finest in the country.

Fellowship Training

In addition to its residency training, the Department of Medicine had nearly 25 fellowship programs, including 15 ACGMEaccredited programs, across its 13 sub-specialty divisions in the 2020-2021 academic year. Additionally, the department had 17 active T32 institutional training grants. In FY21, the department’s fellowship programs provided specialized training for more than 150 clinical and post-doctoral fellows, many of whom published manuscripts in leading peerreviewed journals.

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RESEARCH OVERVIEW It’s an honor to be the Vice Chair of Research for one of the most successful departments of Medicine in the country. Since I assumed this position, I have watched the department grow, and we continue to be the second-best funded department in the nation by the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research. We have a very diverse research portfolio spread across our 13 divisions and 29 research centers. Our excellence is exemplified by our success in grant funding, training, and publications in the very best medical and scientific journals.

ROY ZENT, MBBCH, PHD Professor of Medicine (Nephrology and Hypertension) Vice Chair, Research

In FY21, we continued our incredible success in obtaining funding with over $240 million in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, and over $300 million in total grant funding. The research portfolio is varied and includes multiple training grants, research awards, career development awards and center grants. We had 33 new grants and 54 grant renewals. Our portfolio includes 147 awards to established individual investigators worth approximately $100 million in funding, and 30 career development awards accounting for nearly $7 million from the NIH. We have 17 NIHfunded training grants, which provided us with more than $8 million dollars to ensure the very best education for our trainees. The remaining NIH funding comes from large, multi-Principal Investigator (PI) collaborative and center grants. The faculty continued to perform at the highest levels within the Department of Veterans Affairs research portfolio, having obtained approximately 50 Merit and six Career Development Awards totaling more than $8.5 million. We have also been highly successful with foundation and industry funding from different sources. While the divisions have been extremely productive in obtaining funding, the best performing divisions in the last academic year were Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Infectious Diseases, and Clinical Pharmacology. Consistent with our growth in grant funding, the department continues to increase both the quantity and quality of publications. Faculty in the Department of Medicine published approximately 2,257 manuscripts in leading, high-impact journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Nature Medicine and Nature in the last academic year. Of those, approximately 1,303 were research articles. The Web of Science h-index has grown from 88 to 116 over the last five years, once again showing the remarkable overall productivity and impact of the research in the department. I am confident that the growth and research productivity in the department will continue to flourish thanks to our creative, intelligent and hardworking faculty, staff and trainees. Because of this, I am optimistic that we will continue to be one of the premier research departments of Medicine in the country.

Professor of Medicine Vice Chair, Research

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RESEARCH BY THE NUMBERS Total NIH Funding*

* Data represents approximate value of NIH funding

RH GR IM HO GE GI NP DE CA EP CP ID Other AP

$162M

$168M

$162M

NIH FY16

NIH FY17

NIH FY18

$3M $3.4M $5.7M $5.9M $9.3M $9.5M $9.7M $9.7M $11.1M $12.9M $14.6M

$244M

$175M

NIH FY19

NIH FY20

NIH FY20 Award by Division

$21.7M $60.3M $67.7M

H-index 88

NIH FY16

NIH FY17

NIH FY18

106

NIH FY19

116

NIH FY20 | 21

Elizabeth Phillips, MD

Top: Robert Coffey, MD Bottom: Dan Roden, MDCM

Notable New Awards RO1 Awards • Jin Chen, MD, PhD (Rheumatology and Immunology), “Effect of tumor cell glutamine metabolism on anti-tumor immunity in TNBC” • Fiona Harrison, PhD (Diebetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism), “Manganese exposure susceptibility as a modifier of excitotoxicity in Alzheimer’s Disease” • Michael Noto, MD, PhD (Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine), “The Role of Mitochondrial Metabolism in Neutrophilic Lung Inflammation” • Danxia Yu, PhD (Epidemiology), “Gut microbial metabolites and risk of coronary heart disease: a prospective, multiethnic, metabolomic study” UO1 Awards • Tuya Pal, MD (Genetic Medicine), “IMProving Care After Inherited Cancer Testing (IMPACT) Study” • Elizabeth Phillips, MD (Infectious Diseases), “NATIENS: A Phase III Randomized Double Blinded Study to Determine the Mechanisms and Optimal Management of Stevens-Johnson Syndrome and Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis” • Dan Roden, MDCM (Clinical Pharmacology), “Vanderbilt Genome-Electronic Records (VGER) Project” K Awards • Scott Haake, MD (Hematology and Oncology), “Constitutive Integrin Beta1 Signaling in Lung Cancer” • David Patrick, MD, PhD (Cardiovascular Medicine), “A Role of Isolevuglandin Adducts in Essential Hypertension and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus” • Sarah Short, PhD (Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition), “Antioxidant regulation of intestinal homeostasis and disease” 22 |

Notable Publications

• Glazer AM, Wada Y, Li B, Muhammad A, Kalash OR, O’Neill MJ, Shields T, Hall L, Short L, Blair MA, Kroncke BM, Capra JA, Roden DM. High-Throughput Reclassification of SCN5A Variants. Am J Hum Genet. 2020 Jul 2;107(1):111-123. doi: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2020.05.015. Epub 2020 Jun 12. PMID: 32533946; PMCID: PMC7332654. • Gobert AP, Boutaud O, Asim M, Zagol-Ikapitte IA, Delgado AG, Latour YL, Finley JL, Singh K, Verriere TG, Allaman MM, Barry DP, McNamara KM, Sierra JC, Amarnath V, Tantawy MN, Bimczok D, Piazuelo MB, Washington MK, Zhao S, Coburn LA, Wilson KT. Dicarbonyl Electrophiles Mediate InflammationInduced Gastrointestinal Carcinogenesis. Gastroenterology. 2021 Mar;160(4):1256-1268.e9. doi: 10.1053/j. gastro.2020.11.006. Epub 2020 Nov 13. PMID: 33189701; PMCID: PMC7956217. • Morley TJ, Han L, Castro VM, Morra J, Perlis RH, Cox NJ, Bastarache L, Ruderfer DM. Phenotypic signatures in clinical data enable systematic identification of patients for ge-netic testing. Nat Med. 2021 Jun;27(6):1097-1104. doi: 10.1038/s41591-021-01356-z. Epub 2021 Jun 3. PMID: 34083811. • Reinfeld BI, Madden MZ, Wolf MM, Chytil A, Bader JE, Patterson AR, Sugiura A, Cohen AS, Ali A, Do BT, Muir A, Lewis CA, Hongo RA, Young KL, Brown RE, Todd VM, Huffstater T, Abraham A, O’Neil RT, Wilson MH, Xin F, Tantawy MN, Merryman WD, Johnson RW, Williams CS, Mason EF, Mason FM, Beckermann KE, Vander Heiden MG, Manning HC, Rathmell JC, Rathmell WK. Cell-programmed nutrient partitioning in the tumour microenvironment. Nature. 2021 May;593(7858):282-288. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03442-1. Epub 2021 Apr 7. PMID: 33828302; PMCID: PMC8122068. • Rubinstein SM, Warner JL. COVID-19 and haematological malignancy: navigating a nar-row strait. Lancet Haematol. 2020 Oct;7(10):e701-e703. doi: 10.1016/S2352-3026(20)30252-0. Epub 2020 Aug 13. PMID: 32798474; PMCID: PMC7426081.

Research Centers

Considered to be areas of research excellence, research centers are comprised of collaborators, both internal and external to the Department of Medicine, who are aligned on a single research theme. Housed within the department, there are 29 research centers led by 31 faculty in 11 divisions. These include: • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

South East AIDS Education and Training Center Tennessee Center for AIDS Research TN AIDS Education and Training Center Vanderbilt Center for Asthma Research Vanderbilt Center for Behavioral Health and Health Education Vanderbilt Center for Bone Biology Vanderbilt Center for Drug Safety and Immunology Vanderbilt Center for Health Services Research Vanderbilt Center for Human Nutrition Vanderbilt Center for Kidney Disease Vanderbilt Center for Matrix Biology Vanderbilt Center for Professional Health Vanderbilt Center for Quality Aging- IMPH Vanderbilt Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction and Survivorship Center

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Vanderbilt Diabetes Center Vanderbilt Digestive Disease Research Center Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center Vanderbilt Epithelial Biology Center Vanderbilt Genetics Institute Vanderbilt Heart Institute Vanderbilt Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center Vanderbilt Institute for Experimental Therapeutics Vanderbilt Institute for Medicine and Public Health Vanderbilt Interstitial Lung Disease Center Vanderbilt Interventional Pulmonary Research Lab Vanderbilt Lung Institute Vanderbilt Pulmonary Hypertension Center Vanderbilt Sarcoidosis Center of Excellence Vanderbilt Tuberculosis Center

In the last fiscal year, the research centers received nearly $56 million in NIH-funded awards for their projects. Notable awards included: • Robert Coffey, MD (Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition), “Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center SPORE in Gastrointestinal Cancer” • Tom Elasy, MD (General Internal Medicine and Public Health), “Vanderbilt Center for Diabetes Translation Research” • Raymond Harris, MD (Nephrology and Hypertension), “Vanderbilt O’Brien Kidney Center” • Consuelo Wilkins, MD, MSCI (Geriatric Medicine), “Center of Excellence in Precision Medicine and Population Health”

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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OVERVIEW As the inaugural Vice Chair for Professional Development for the Department of Medicine, I am delighted to bring my experience and passion for career advancement to this role. Professional development, as a concept, includes self-reflection, skill acquisition, active learning, mentorship and coaching. In health care, we use the term “personalized medicine” to indicate a tailored treatment approach to a particular patient, an approach that is built on specific individualized parameters. Personalized medicine underscores the concept that “one size” does not fit all. My vision of professional development similarly supports a “personalized” experience that allows the faculty member to choose the skills, training and support that are required to meet their career goals. JILL GILBERT, MD Professor of Medicine (Hematology and Oncology) Vice Chair, Professional Development Associate Director, Research, Education and Development

The Department of Medicine recognizes that robust professional development programming is essential to retain faculty by meeting the professional needs of its diverse workforce, and by creating an environment in which faculty can grow and thrive despite an ever-changing health care landscape. In the last year, we have seen unprecedented levels of burnout and moral injury as our faculty face an ongoing pandemic. We recognize that academic physicians are essential to the health of our country as we lead the way to medical advancement and training of the next generation. Our entire health care system depends on the viability of academic medical faculty to carry out the tripartite mission of clinical care, education and research. Thus, it is critically important to support and retain this vital resource, our people. In an effort to support the more than 900 faculty members that make up the Department of Medicine, we have created new professional societies, programming and levels of support to allow our faculty to not only survive but to thrive. In the Department of Medicine, we are committed to fostering a culture that values the individual’s contribution to the department and Medical Center missions. We strongly believe that it is not just our job but it is our responsibility to nurture and to protect our talent throughout the trajectory of their career. This will occur through innovative programing to support wellness, professional growth, networking, coaching and leadership development.

Professor of Medicine Vice Chair, Professional Development Associate Director, Research, Education and Development

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Eric Neilson, MD

William Schaffner, MD

Professional Development Societies Nielson Society

Named after former Department of Medicine Chair Eric Neilson, MD, the Neilson Society was developed to provide support and oversight for the careers of PhD and MD tenure track faculty as they develop their independent research careers. The Neilson Society is a resource for junior faculty to help them to develop the skills needed to navigate the course toward tenure and promotion. In the 2020-2021 academic year, more than 80 tenure track faculty in 12 of the department’s 13 subspecialty divisions were Nielson Society members. Members are invited to an informal peer mentoring program and small group meetings, as well as structured monthly Seminar Series and mentorship events throughout the year to discuss issues relevant to tenured basic scientist and physician-scientist career development. Activities of this society prepare junior faculty to become international leaders with independent, funded investigation and a track record of seminal discovery.

Schaffner Society

Named for William Schaffner, MD, Professor and Chairman of Preventive Medicine and Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases), the Schaffner Society’s mission is to support professional development of the clinician-educator faculty through the trajectory of their careers, particularly to develop skills in education, scholarship and leadership, regardless of rank. Led by Jamie Dwyer, MD (Nephrology and Hypertension), the Schaffner Society advocates for a more purposeful, careful delineation of a career trajectory, where each decision about what to do (or not to do) is weighed with trusted mentors to ask the simple question, “What does this get me, the institution and my profession?” Last year, membership in the Schaffner Society was comprised of 304 clinical educators in 11 divisions in the Department of Medicine. Additionally, in the last year, the department selected senior clinician-educators in each division to serve as Schaffner Liaisons, reconstructed the Committee on Appointments and Promotions (COAP) to be representative of more clinician-educator faculty, and worked to develop core programming on what is necessary to advance academically. The department has also developed interventions targeted both at the earliest stages of a clinician-educator’s career, and for individual faculty members who are nearing promotion, or may feel stalled in their track, to ensure that the academic portion of one’s career is supported, nurtured and allowed to flourish.

Miller Society

Established in 2021, the Miller Society is a new society that focuses on the professional development of the department’s anchors of patient care, the full-time clinicians and advanced practice providers. This important cohort of individuals forms a base of clinical excellence whose reach extends throughout the Vanderbilt campus, as well as through Tennessee-based | 25

Reflections on the Schaffner Society by Jamie Dwyer, MD

When I joined the VUMC faculty in 2008 as an Assistant Professor, I was two years out of my fellowship, and although I didn’t exactly feel behind in my academic progression, I knew that I needed guidance and leadership. I sought out Dr. John Newman who was the Schaffner Society Director, and he advised me to get trusted mentors on a Mentoring Committee. I felt lucky because I knew what I wanted my career to look like in about 10 years, so I selected people whom I respected immensely who would not be afraid to honestly tell me if something was good or bad for my “planned” trajectory. I vividly remember the morning when Drs. Art Wheeler, Julie Lewis and Ray Harris sat in my Mentoring Committee meeting, and that afternoon I saw Art in the Nashville airport on the way to our respective Data and Safety Monitoring Board meetings. I felt I had accomplished something that day, and it was electric. My division director, Dr. Harris, helped me understand concrete steps I needed for promotion to Associate. The day I sat for my first ABIM recertification exam in Internal Medicine, my cellphone rang as I was putting it away for the test. Dr. Harris was calling, and my first thought was “Uh oh, what did I do?,” but instead he said “Jamie, your packet flew through! Congratulations!” That afternoon (Yes, I passed…), I began to think about the next step, what I needed to give up and what I needed to do more of to succeed. I recall documenting every lecture and paper that came out, structuring numbered lists on my CV and getting advice on how to tell the story of the themes of my evolution as an academic physician. Fortuitously, on the day I was promoted to Professor, Julie Lewis (who happens to be my neighbor and my most trusted mentor) was the one who let me know! Having benefitted first-hand from the structures that the Society put in place, it’s an honor to have the opportunity to help chart the next evolution of the Schaffner Society.

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community practice sites. This group, led by Ryan Buckley, MD (Internal Medicine), has a unique set of professional development needs including how to provide patient care that is recognized regionally and nationally as consistently excellent; how to initiate and lead a quality improvement initiative; how to direct a clinical program; how to navigate the business of medicine; and how to become involved in a state or national professional society in order to advocate for provider and patient interests. In creating this society, the department recognized the critical importance of this group of faculty, and reinforces its commitment to their professional satisfaction and engagement.

Ongoing Initiatives

In the last year, in addition to the professional societies, the Department of Medicine launched several initiatives, including a Women in Medicine group, a mentorship council and networking society that further enhances the career advancement of faculty. The Women in Medicine initiative is designed for clinician-educator faculty that addresses the professional success in academic medicine for clinician-educator track female physicians through the development of leadership skills, networking opportunities and a structured mentorship program with women leaders in the Department of Medicine. The department developed a mentorship council whose purpose is to oversee the mentoring process and programs for all faculty, including advanced practice providers, within the Department of Medicine; to review and develop policies and procedures for mentorship within the department; to meet and collaborate with representatives from the societies that represent the various tracks within the department; to identify barriers and challenges to faculty mentorship and to develop, propose and monitor programs designed to address these obstacles; to provide routine progress reports to the department and Division Directors; and to work with COAP to improve the advancement process. Additionally, the department established “Changing Lanes,” a network whose goal is to retain and engage the department’s most senior faculty, and to continually recognize their value to the institution in the latter years of their career. As the department transitions into the next academic year, it looks forward to many more exciting developments to create a world-class professional development program that supports, engages, excites and retains its most valuable asset, the faculty.

DIVISION UPDATES

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ALLERGY, PULMONARY AND CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE While this most difficult year has tested our patience and resolve, the faculty, fellows and staff in the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine have shown remarkable courage and resilience. Our team has expanded critical care services to care for patients with severe COVID-19, continued to provide outstanding care for other patients with respiratory and allergic diseases, and sustained our commitment to excellence in research and teaching. In my 29 years at Vanderbilt, I have never been so proud of our division. Our remarkable commitment to excellence, accountability and inclusiveness has never been on such full display. Our Medical ICU team has performed extraordinary work thanks to outstanding leadership by Drs. Todd Rice, Matt Semler and Stephanie Norfolk. We hired and trained a highly functional group of nurse practitioners who, along with our existing group of critical care nurse practitioners, performed heroic work in staffing the COVID ICU. This group was supported by our clinical faculty who were pressed into extra clinical service time. Our clinical fellows, many of whom were pulled from their research time for extra clinical duties, were stalwart in managing the increase in patient volume and acuity. The entire Medical Center owes a great debt of gratitude to this entire group. After several years of planning, and in the midst of the pandemic, we successfully launched the new Vanderbilt Lung Institute (VLI). Thanks to the leadership of Drs. Joao de Andrade and Matt Bacchetta, the VLI is off to a great start. We opened a new clinic at One Hundred Oaks (OHO) to provide comprehensive care for patients in the region with advanced lung disease and re-structured our clinic at The Vanderbilt Clinic (TVC). In conjunction with opening of the VLI, we continued to expand our lung transplant program and started the Advanced Lung Disease Service (ALDS). The ALDS is is staffed by an excellent group of nurse practitioners and clinical faculty dedicated to the care of lung transplant patients and other patients with advanced lung disease. Our Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship program, with outstanding leadership from Drs. Meredith Pugh and William Lawson, recently expanded from four to six fellows per year. This expansion required restructuring of clinical rotations and an overhaul 28 |

TIMOTHY BLACKWELL, MD Professor of Medicine Director, Division of Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine

Division leaders participate in the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Vanderbilt Lung Institute on Nov. 16, 2020

of the curriculum. In addition to changes to the inpatient services, Rosemarie Dudenhofer, MD, has taken on the role of outpatient clinic director for the fellowship program and is implementing a new curriculum for ambulatory pulmonary medicine. Our divisional research program has continued to thrive under the leadership of Anna Hemnes, MD, with over $67 million in total research funding in the last academic year. We published a variety of high impact manuscripts related to COVID-19, asthma, pulmonary fibrosis, pulmonary vascular disease, thoracic oncology and critical care. In addition, we launched the Pulmonary Research Infrastructure for Shared resources and Mentorship (PRISM) designed to support the establishment of new clinical and translational research programs. This past year has included a number of important transitions. Two of our most esteemed faculty members, Drs. Jim Loyd and James “Bo” Sheller, retired after long and impactful careers. We also lost two of our most loved faculty members, Drs. Pierre Massion and Richard Light, who passed away tragically and unexpectedly, as well as Dr. Samuel Rowe Marney, Jr., who founded our division in 1974. We continue to keep each of them with us as we remember them and continue their important work. Although we face a variety of ongoing challenges, including persistence of the pandemic, the future is bright for our division. We have an enormous opportunity to be national leaders and role models for research, training and clinical care in Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.

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In Memoriam

Clinical Updates

The division has made substantial contributions to the VUMC COVID-19 response in the last year. It established additional ICU teams during times of surge, and the NP service shouldered the burden of caring for the sickest patient population at Vanderbilt. The ALDS was established to care for pre- and post-lung transplant patients, as well as patients with other forms of chronic lung disease. The service is led by lung transplant faculty and seven dedicated and highly trained NPs. A 27-bed Pulmonary Stepdown Unit caring primarily for patients in the ALDS and Rogers Pulmonary services is now located on 8N.

The division marked the launch of the VLI with the opening of its OHO clinic, which is comprised of 16 examination rooms. This new facility secures the division’s ability to grow clinical services while also supporting its educational and research efforts. In a very challenging year, the division had over 51,500 clinic visits, which represents a 9.3% increase in volume compared to the previous academic year. Access to clinical Samuel Rowe Marney, Jr., MD services improved substantially. In FY21, 41.9% of patients were seen within 14 days, Feb. 15, 1934-Jan. 7, 2021 compared to 38.5% in FY20. The division had a more than 7,800 new patients, which represents a 19.8% increase compared to FY20. In addition, a paperless model for patient intake at the VLI clinic at OHO was established, and outreach and marketing efforts were aligned to better expand referrals in Tennessee and surrounding states. The Interventional Pulmonology Program performed nearly 1,500 procedures, which represents a 2.5% increase in volume compared to FY20 – a remarkable accomplishment considering the constraints imposed by COVID-19. In order to better accommodate the needs of colleagues from Interventional Pulmonology and Thoracic Surgery, a procedure room was built in the VLI clinic in TVC. A specialized drug allergy clinic was also established in Allergy and Immunology. This initiative, led by Drs. Cosby Stone and Elizabeth Phillips (Infectious Diseases), is a unique resource and an example of successful integration between a clinical service with research endeavors. Pierre Massion, MD March 28, 1963-April 4, 2021

Research Updates

Even in a year that challenged research faculty and staff with working from home, increased patient volumes and logistical challenges of social distancing, the division continued to thrive in the research arena. Faculty were major contributors to trials that led to more evidence-based care of COVID-19 infection, including participating in recently published trials of hydroxychloroquine (Self, Semler, Rice, JAMA 2020), studies of the role of anticoagulation in COVID-19 infection (Semler, Annals of Internal Medicine, 2021) and new understanding of delirium in COVID-19 patients (Ely, Lancet Respiratory Medicine, 2021). However, the division’s contributions to the field were not limited to studies related to the pandemic. Impactful work related to asthma, pulmonary fibrosis, pulmonary vascular disease, thoracic oncology, critical care and diffuse lung injury continued to be published. Faculty received several new major grants, including three new R01s, one R21 and a U01 from the NIH, and several Department of Defense, Veterans Affairs and industrysupported grants. The division also had three career development grant awardees in the past year.

Richard Light, MD Feb. 9, 1942-May 11, 2021

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Recognizing the critical role of clinical and translational research infrastructure, the division formed PRISM to provide a “one stop shop” for clinical studies with services ranging from budgeting and contracting to regulatory compliance and finally day-to-

day study management. This group has already supported over 15 studies in lung diseases and is rapidly expanding.

Education Updates

In the past several years, the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine fellowship training program has had significant growth and now has six clinical fellows per year, with several additional research fellows each year. Led by Program Director Dr. Meredith Pugh and Associate Program Director Dr. William Lawson, the program continues to be a leader in training academic clinicians and physician-scientists, with over half of recent fellow graduates in academic faculty roles at institutions across the United States. Drawing on the rich history of basic, translational and clinical research within the division, fellows’ research contributions are broad in scope and are highlighted in CHEST, Critical Care Medicine, the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (AJRCCM) and others. Clinical training is second to none. With high volumes of bronchoscopy and pleural procedures, a focus on airway management, high-acuity medical intensive care services, a multi-disciplinary ECMO team and structured ambulatory curriculum with sub-specialty pulmonary clinic rotations, fellows receive comprehensive training that enables them to care for the most routine and complex patients. The Allergy and Immunology fellowship has continued to thrive with its focus on outstanding research and clinical instruction, with an emphasis on training academic faculty. The interventional pulmonary fellowship, led by Fabien Maldonado, MD, is in its sixth year, and provides trainees with extensive experience in cutting-edge diagnostic and therapeutic interventions while simultaneously conducting translational and clinical research that is expanding treatment options in the field of pleural disease, thoracic oncology and airway diseases.

2020-2021 Fellows Allergy and Immunology • Sarah Bluestein, MD • Emily Campbell, MD • Kristen Corcoran, MD • Grace Koo, MD • Matthew Krantz, MD • Patrick Staso, MD Interventional Pulmonology • Sameer K. Avasarala, MD

Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine • Wade Brown, MD • Adrienne Conger, MD • Daniel Cook, MD, PhD • Carla Copeland, MD • Peter Edmonds, MD • Brent Heideman, MD • Karen Jackson, MD • Michael Lester, MD

• • • • • • • •

Matthew Mart, MD Scott A. McCall, MD, PhD Rafael Paez, MD Edward Qian, MD Ankush Ratwani, MD Kevin Seitz, MD Nicholas Shelburne, MD Niki Winters, MD, PhD

Fellow Highlights

• Daniel Cook, MD, PhD, received a Leroy Matthews Physician-Scientist Award from the CF Foundation • Rafael Paez, MD, featured in the Latino Hospital series by NBC News for his work in caring for COVID-19 patients • Nicholas Shelburne, MD, received a Pulmonary Hypertension Accelerated Bayer Award to support ongoing clinical research in pulmonary hypertension

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Faculty Honors and Awards

• Julie Bastarache, MD, was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) Council and named Chair of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Faculty Advisory Committee • Katherine Cahill, MD, received the Jo Rae Wright Award for Outstanding Service by the American Thoracic Society • Tina Hartert, MD, was named to the Parker B. Francis Council of Scientific Advisors • Eric Kerchberger, MD, received the Parker B. Francis Award • Lisa Lancaster, MD, was a Top 12 Finalist in the worldwide Pulmonary Fibrosis Innovation Challenge • R. Stokes Peebles, MD, was appointed Associate Chief of Staff for Research at the Nashville VA Medical Center • Todd Rice, MD, MSc, was appointed Vice President for Clinical Trial Innovation and Operations in the Vanderbilt Institute for Clincial and Translational Research • Matt Semler, MD, MSCI, received an ASCI Young Investigator Award • Cosby Stone, MD, MPH, was awarded a three-year faculty development award from the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Foundation • Lorraine Ware, MD, was elected ASCI President

2020-2021 FACULTY PROFESSORS

Gordon Bernard, MD Timothy Blackwell, MD Brian Christman, MD Joao de Andrade, MD Wesley Ely, MD Tina Hartert, MD Jack Hawiger, MD, PhD James Jackson, PsyD Lisa Lancaster, MD Richard Light, MD Fabien Maldonado, MD Pierre Massion, MD John Newman, MD Ray Stokes Peebles, MD Vasiliy Polosukhin, MD, PhD Jill Pulley, MBA Ivan Robbins, MD Lorraine Ware, MD James West, PhD Pingsheng Wu, PhD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS Julie Bastarache, MD Ryszard Dworski, MD, PhD Anna Hemnes, MD Jonathan Kropski, MD William Lawson, MD Amit Parulekar, MD Meredith Pugh, MD, MSCI Todd Rice, MD, MSc Otis Rickman, DO Carla Sevin, MD James Tolle, MD Weisong Zhou, PhD Jozef Zienkiewicz, PhD

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SR. ASSOCIATES IN MEDICINE Janna Landsperger, RN, MSN

ASSISTANT PROFESSORS Kenneth Babe, MD Katherine Cahill, MD Erica Carrier, PhD Jonathan Casey, MD, MSCI Rosemarie Beckford Dudenhofer, MD John Fahrenholz, MD David Hagaman, MD Justin Hewlett, MD Basil Kahwash, MD* Robert Lentz, MD Yan Liu, MD Katie McPherson, MD* Alison Miller, MD Dawn Newcomb, PhD Stephanie Norfolk, MD Michael Noto, MD, PhD Jamshedur Rahman, PhD Bradley Richmond, MD Carleen Mae Sabusap, PhD* Margaret Salisbury, MD Matthew Semler, MD, MSCI Ana Serezani, PhD Ciara Shaver, MD, PhD Cosby Stone, MD, MPH Megha Talati, PhD Harikrishna Tanjore, PhD Shinji Toki, PhD Anil Trindade, MD Kedir Turi, PhD Melissa Warren, MD Paula Watson, MD

ASSISTANTS IN MEDICINE Christine Allocco, RN, MSN Leslie Armistead, MSN Brooke Bailey, DNP, MSN Jeffrey Barton, MS* Sarah Bloom, MSN Jesse Michael Byram, RN, MSN Lynn Clement, RN, MSN Susan Eastman, MSN Shannon Ellrich, DNP, MSN Lisa Flemmons, RN, MSN Daniel Ford, MSN Whitney Gannon, MSN Candi Hicks, DNP, MSN* Michelle Irwin, MSN Olivia Kirkpatrick, MSN Karen McCarty, RN, MSN Christy Cleveland Noblit, RN, MSN Lori Russell, MSN Wren Sherrill, MSN Jonathan Kipp Shipley, DNP Christy Sparkman, MSN Charla Walston, MSN Cynthia Wasden, RN, MSN Dana Wirth, RN, MSN

INSTRUCTORS

Sameer Avasarala, MBBS* Jessica Blackburn, PhD* Jason Gokey, PhD Eric Kerchberger, MD* Huan Qiao, MD, PhD Anand Rathinasabapathy, PhD

* New faculty in FY21

Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Dr. Jonathan Kropski (left) and colleague Drs. Jennifer Sucre and Bryce Schuler identified a key factor as to why COVID-19 appeared to infect and sicken adults and older people preferentially than younger children. Their findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Cardiovascular Medicine Dr. MacRae Linton (right) and colleague Drs. Huan Tao, Sean Davies and Jiansheng Huang led a study that identified a potential new treatment for atherosclerosis. They published their findings in Nature Communications.

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CARDIOVASCULAR MEDICINE The Division of Cardiovascular Medicine is an extraordinary and talented collection of faculty and staff united by an overarching goal to promote human health through clinical excellence, compassionate care, pioneering research and outstanding education. Through inquiry and innovation, the division is advancing patient care and biomedical knowledge, and developing cardiovascular careers and physician leaders in a culture that supports diversity, inclusion, critical thinking and creativity. Despite the limitations and challenges of the past year, the division has undergone active growth and transformation. The division’s current goals are to sustain growth of the clinical operations, enrichment and broadening of the research portfolio, and advocacy for the division, its mission, and commitment to equity and inclusion. We hope to facilitate this progress, as well as enhance connections, and to accelerate interactions between basic and clinical disciplines and the campus at large. This successful year concluded with Adult Cardiology and Heart Surgery being ranked No. 17 in the U.S. News & World Report. This success is the direct result of our outstanding faculty and staff, and the leadership of interim division directors Drs. Dan Roden (Clinical Pharmacology) and Dan Munoz. As of last January, Dr. Munoz took over as the Executive Medical Director of the Vanderbilt Heart & Vascular Institute (VHVI) for Walter Clair, MD. Jane Freedman, MD, was also named Division Director, effective Aug. 1, 2021. Dr. Freedman came to Vanderbilt from the University of Massachusetts, and is the Physician-in-Chief for VHVI, the Gladys Parkinson Stahlman Professor of Cardiovascular Research and the Editor-in-Chief of Circulation Research.

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JANE FREEDMAN, MD Professor of Medicine Director, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine

Clinical Updates

(L to R) Dr. Murali Kollis, Ahmad Abu-Halimah, David Dantzler and Ravinder Manda at Vanderbilt Heart Murfreesboro

The division’s specific clinical strengths are broad and diverse, including heart failure and transplant being the nation’s leading heart transplant center for the second year in a row for adults. The program increased to 129 adult hearts transplanted in 2021, up from 111 in 2020. The division continues to be a national referral center for ventricular tachycardia and a leading center for left atrial appendage management with lead participation in Mitraclip studies. The division is a referral center for cardiovascular genetics and has growing effort in vascular medicine and pulmonary hypertension. Additionally, VUMC is the only state-recognized Center of Excellence for transcatheter aortic valve replacement.

Research Updates

For the entire division, total funding last academic year was over $32 million with more than $16.5 million coming from the NIH; $1.6 million from other federal sources; $3.6 million from foundations or other agencies; and $10.6 million from industry sources. This included research related to Lipid biology with the awarding of a Program Project Grant, HIV and the heart, Arrhythmia Science, Translational and population sciences and Cardio-oncology. Specific awards of note include Acute heart failure (Deepak Gupta, MD); the Genetics of early onset atrial fibrillation (Benjamin Shoemaker, MD, MSCI); Gene editing as a therapy (Jonathan Brown, MD); PDE5 inhibitors in adipose metabolism (Evan Brittain, MD, MSCI); and Classifying acute myocardial infarction (Andrew DeFillipis, MD, MSc). Additionally, VA Career Development Awards were awarded to Drs. David Patrick and Justin Bachman. Research strengths include lipid biology, HIV and the heart, arrhythmia sciences and translation and population sciences amongst many other exciting investigative works. The Vanderbilt Translational and Clinical Cardiovascular Research Center has continued to grow under the directorship of Dr. Gupta.

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Cardiovascular Medicine Total Grant Awards

$22.4M

$23.7M

$24.3M

$24.1M

FY17

FY18

FY19

FY20

$32.4M

FY21

Education Updates

The division has eight diverse training programs, ranging from one to three years in lenght, that provide specialized training in various cardiovascular diseases. In FY21, these programs were comprised of 42 clinical and 13 post-doctoral fellows.

Adult Congenital Heart Disease

A two-year program led by Program Director Dr. Frank Fish and Associate Program Director Dr. Ben Frischhertz that provides experience at VUMC and Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. In FY21 there were two fellows and one graduate.

Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant

A one-year program led by Program Director Dr. Lynne Stevenson and Associate Program Director Dr. Lynn Punnoose that provides experience at the highest volume transplant program in the nation. Fellows rotate through VUMC and Nashville VA hospitals. In FY21, all three fellows graduated.

Advanced Imaging

A one- to two-year program led by Program Director Dr. Evan Brittain with opportunities for clinical training and research in echocardiography, nuclear cardiology, cardiac MRI and cardiac CT. In FY21, there was one fellow.

Cardio-oncology

A one- to two-year program providing clinical and research experience at VUMC. In FY21, there were two fellows who graduated.

Electrophysiology

A two-year program led by Program Director Dr. Arvindh Kanagasundram and Associate Program Director Dr. Jay Montgomery, fellows in this program rotate at VUMC and Nashville VA hospitals. In FY21, there were four fellows and two graduates.

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General Cardiovascular Medicine

A three-year program led by Program Director Dr. Julie Damp and Associate Program Directors Drs. Holly Gonzalez and Quinn Wells, the General Cardiovascular Medicine fellowship provides opportunities for additional years of training dedicated to research or additional subspecialties in cardiology. Fellows rotate through VUMC, Nashville VA and Nashville General hospitals. In FY21, the program had 28 fellows and five graduates.

Interventional and Structural Cardiology

The Interventional and Structural Cardiology fellowships are separate one-year programs led by Program Director Dr. Colin Barker and Associate Program Director Dr. Jared O’Leary. Fellows rotate through the VUMC and Nashville VA hospitals. In FY21, all four fellows graduated.

Vascular Medicine

A one-year program led by Program Director Dr. Joshia Beckman with opportunity for training in specialty care of vascular disorders as well as interpretation of vascular ultrasound at VUMC. In FY21, there was one fellow who graduated.

2020-2021 Fellows Adult Congenital Heart Disease • Daniel Clark, MD • Steven Healan, MD Advanced Heart Failure and Liver Transplant • Richa Gupta, MD • Aniket Rali, MD • Allman Rollins, MD Electrophysiology • Oluwaseun Adeola, MD • Asad Al Aboud, MD • Ansel Amaral, MD, PhD • Jason Cook, MD Interventional and Structural Cardiology • Fahad Alqahtani, MD, MBBS • Faheemullah Beg, MBBS • Jay Patel, MD • Juli Shelton, DO General Cardiovascular Medicine • Kemal Akat, MD, PhD (ABIM) • Kaushik Amancherla, MD

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

David Armstrong, MD, PhD Lawrence Charles, MD Andrew Cluckey, MD Cherie Dahm, MD Debra Dixon Nunn, MD, MS (ABIM) Majd El-Harasis, MBBS Hannah Fish-Trotter, MD Matthew Fleming, MD, PhD (ABIM) Kathryn Gayle, MD Jonathan Heimlich, MD, PhD (ABIM) Stephen Holby, MD Tara Holder, MD Jamie Kowal, DO Anupam Kumar, MD Megan Lancaster, MD, PhD (ABIM) Dan (Leslie) Li, MD, PhD Jose Martinez-Parachini, MD Lindsay Panah, MD Amar Parikh, MD Jeffrey Schmeckpeper, MD, PhD Fiona Strasserking, MD

• • • •

Alexander Sullivan, MD Timothy Thayer, MD Victoria Thomas, MD Jean Wassenaar, MD, PhD (ABIM) • John Wells, MD Vascular Medicine • Sophia Bampoh, MD Post-doctoral Fellows • Minoo Bagheri, PhD • Chitra Basu, PhD • Adam Behroozian, MD, PhD • Mark Castleberry, PhD • Ryan Ceddia, PhD • Karthik Dhanabalan, PhD • Ali Manouchehri, PhD • Haley Overby, PhD • Juan Qin, PhD • Fubiao Shi, PhD • Elie Tannous, PhD • Chuan Wang, PhD • Zhentao Zhang, PhD

Faculty Honors and Awards • • • •

Vineet Agrawal, MD, PhD, received an American Heart Association (AHA) Career Development Award Michael Baker, MD, was named Medical Director for Transesophageal Echocardiography Jonathan Brown, MD, received an AHA Collaborative Sciences Award Walter Clair, MD, was appointed Vice Chair for Diversity and Inclusion in the Department of Medicine; and was the recipient of the 2021 Harvard Medal • Andrew DeFilippis, MD, MSc, was named Medical Director for Cardiovascular ICU

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• Esther Kim, MD, MPH, published a review on Spontaneous Coronary-Artery Dissection in the New England Journal of Medicine • JoAnn Lindenfeld, MD, was elected to the Association of University Cardiologists, and was named holder of the endowed Samuel S. Riven, MD, Directorship in Cardiology • Drs. Gregory Michaud and William Stevenson published an Atrial Fibrillation Review in the New England Journal of Medicine • Daniel Munoz, MD, named Medical Director of the Patient Care Center at Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute • Jared O’Leary, MD, named Medical Director for Quality at the VHVI • Kelly Schlendorf, MD, named Medical Director of Heart Failure and Transplant • William Stevenson, MD, delivered the Green Memorial Lecture, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 2020

2020-2021 FACULTY PROFESSORS

Joshua Beckman, MD Benjamin Byrd, MD W. Barton Campbell, MD Andre Churchwell, MD Walter Clair, MD Sheila Collins, PhD George Crossley, MD Matthew Freiberg, MD Marvin Kronenberg, MD JoAnn Lindenfeld, MD MacRae Linton, MD John McPherson, MD Lisa Mendes, MD Gregory Michaud, MD Robert Piana, MD Dan Roden, MDCM Jere Segrest, MD, PhD Lynne Stevenson, MD William Stevenson, MD Yan Ru Su, MD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS Jayant Bagai, MD Colin Barker, MD Evan Brittain, MD, MSCI Julie Damp, MD Andrew DeFilippis, MD, MSc* Christopher Ellis, MD Jane Ferguson, PhD Shawn Gregory, MD David Hansen, MD Antonis Hatzopoulos, PhD Eiman Jahangir, MD, MPH Soo Hyun (Esther) Kim, MD, MPH Brian Lindman, MD, MSCI Javid Moslehi, MD Daniel Munoz, MD Allen Naftilan, MD Henry Okafor, MD Henry Ooi, MD Kelly Schlendorf, MD Kasey Vickers, PhD Quinn Wells, MD, MSCI

ASSISTANT PROFESSORS Robert Abraham, MD Ahmad Abu-Halimah, MD Aaron Aday, MD, MSc Brent Anderson, MD Justin Bachmann, MD, MPH Michael Baker, MD Sharmin Basher, MD Susan Bell, MBBS Marshall Brinkley, MD

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Jonathan Brown, MD Matthews Chacko, MD* Natalie Chichetto, PhD Geoffrey Chidsey, MD David Dantzler, MD Jeffrey Dendy, MD* Temujin Dinaram, MD Amanda Doran, MD, PhD Christopher Scott English, MD Juan Carlos Estrada, MD, MPH Pete Fong, MD G. Christian Freisinger III, MD Benjamin Frischhertz, MD Mark Glazer, MD Kashish Goel, MD Holly Gonzales, MD Deepak Gupta, MD Rob Reid Hood, MD Sean Hughes, MD Rebecca Hung, MD, PhD Waleed Irani, MD Henry Jennings, MD Arvindh Kanagasundram, MD Kathleen Kearney-Gray, MD Amit Keswani, MD Murali Kolli, MD Suman Kundu, PhD* Brian Long, MD Ravinder Reddy Manda, MD Kevin Maquiling, MD Jonathan Menachem, MD David Meoli, MD, PhD Ken Monahan, MD Jay Montgomery, MD James Muldowney, MD Young-Jae Nam, MD, PhD Jared O Leary, MD Dawn Pedrotty, MD, PhD* Joel Phares, MD Mamatha Pinninti, MBBS* Adam Prudoff, MD Lynn Punnoose, MD Nagendra Ramanna, MD Travis Richardson, MD Thomas Richardson, MD Pablo Saavedra, MD Suzanne Brown Sacks, MD Jospeh Salloum, MD Raphael See, MD Sharon Shen, MD Benjamin Shoemaker, MD, MSCI David Slosky, MD Wenliang Song, MD Huan Tao, MD, PhD Janice Vinson, MD Angela Weingarten, MD, MSCI Mark Wigger, MD

Patricia Yancey, PhD Kevin Young, MD Sandip Zalawadiya, MD Lin Zhong, MD, PhD

ASSISTANTS IN MEDICINE Rachel Allison, RN, MSN Katherine Anderson, MSc Amanda Baker, MSN Alyssa Bartok, MSN Ashley Blye, RN, MSN Whitney Bratcher, MSN Margaret Chotard, DNP, MSN Layla Cochran, RN, MSN Madeline Crego, MSN Cindy DeSio, MSN April Edwards, MSN Ryan Gant, MSN Donnalita Harmon, RN, MSN Deborah Harrington, MSN Susan Hellervik, RN, MSN Amy Howard, MSN Linda Howerton, MSN Jennifer Koonce, MSN Christi Locklear, RN, MSN Melissa Long, MSN Ashley Lord, RN, MSN Jamie Lowe McCord, MSN Beth Meador, RN, MSN Alexandra Moran, DNP Deborah Payne, RN, MSN Jennifer Pendergrast, RN, MSN Holly Pierce, RN, MSN Ashlee Piercey, MSN Rachel Schreier, RN, MSN John Schuerlein, MS Angelique Shapman, RN, MSN Barbara Simpson, MSN Teresa Simpson, MSN Douglas West, RN, MSN Alexandria Wheeler, MS Alexandria Wilson, MSN Meghann Wilson, MSN Molly Woods, MSN

INSTRUCTORS

Vineet Agrawal, MD, PhD Ryan Allen, PhD Giovanni Davogustto, MD* Zachary Yoneda, MD*

* New faculty in FY21

Clinical Pharmacology Drs. Cyndya Shibao (middle right), Italo Biaggioni (right) and colleagues discovered a new genetic disease that causes a severe form of neurogenic orthostatic hypotension. They published their findings in Neurology.

Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism Dr. Marcela Brissova (left) and MD/PhD student John “Jack” Walker were part of a research team that developed a pseudoislet system for integrated studies of human islet function.

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CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY In the Division of Clinical Pharmacology, our work to understand the mechanisms of drug action in humans to improve therapeutics has continued without interruption despite the pandemic. The research of our division members bridges the basic and clinical sciences, and we continued to experience robust growth in the last year. We added six new faculty in the areas of pharmacogenomics, autonomic function in obesity, hypertension and arrythmia research therapeutics. Direct NIH dollars awarded to the division exceeded $14 million in the last academic year. Faculty in the division published extensively, with over 100 peer-reviewed articles in prestigious journals, including Circulation, Nature, Hypertension, New England Journal of Medicine, PLoS and the Journal of Clinical Investigation. In addition to conducting state-of-the-art research, members of the division also led many institutional and national efforts to train clinical and translational investigators and to support infrastructure for translational research. The division continues to contribute to achieving several of the goals of the Vanderbilt Research Enterprise Strategic Plan, including those of Personalized Health as well as Healthcare and Therapeutic Discovery and Translation. In this mission, Clinical Pharmacology collaborates with the Oates Institute, the Vanderbilt Center for Bone Biology (VCBB), the Toxicology Center and the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology, as well as with many individual investigators throughout Vanderbilt. Our dynamic fellowship program rigorously trains individuals interested in a career in clinical pharmacology and translational research. With more than 23 fellows in the program, VUMC ranks as a leader in the training of Clinical Pharmacologists for academia, industry and regulatory agencies. Since our founding in 1963, we have trained over 350 fellows – more than any other division of its kind in the world. Bjorn C. Knollmann, MD, PhD, William Stokes Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology Director of the Vanderbilt Center for Arrhythmia Research and Therapeutics (VanCART), serves as Program Director of our fellowship training program and has developed significant resources for the training of our fellows. Notably, Dr. Knollmann renewed the Clinical Pharmacology NIH T32 Training Grant this year. This grant has been continuously funded by the NIH for 47 years. 40 |

DAVID G. HARRISON, MD Professor of Medicine Director, Division of Clinical Pharmacology

Rachelle Johnson, PhD, in the Vanderbilt Center for Bone Biology

This year, we also established a new clinical fellowship in autonomic disorders. It is one of only a few accredited fellowship programs in autonomic disorders in the United States, specializing in orthostatic hypotension and other debilitating neurological and neurodegenerative conditions that disrupt vital autonomic (involuntary) functions, including blood pressure and heart rate. Training is provided through the nationally recognized Vanderbilt Autonomic Dysfunction Center, the first in the country to be devoted exclusively to the diagnosis and treatment of disorders of autonomic blood pressure regulation.

Clinical Updates

The Division of Clinical Pharmacology is comprised of two clinical programs, the Comprehensive Hypertension Service Center of Excellence and the Vanderbilt Autonomic Dysfunction Center. The Comprehensive Hypertension Service Center of Excellence is certified as one of only 18 such centers within the United States. As a clinical unit, it provides inpatient hypertension consults and staff outpatient clinics where difficult-totreat hypertensive patients are seen. In an effort to assist with the increase in patient volume in the last year, the division hired a nurse practitioner. The Vanderbilt Autonomic Dysfunction Center is one of only a few such centers in the country to specifically care for patients with disorders of the autonomic nervous system. While there are also members in Cardiology and Neurology involved in this center, the majority of physicians in this center are in Clinical Pharmacology. This center offers inpatient consults and staffs outpatient clinics to provide care for patients with syncope, postural orthostatic tachycardia (POTS), autonomic failure due to diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, neoplastic syndromes and multisystem failure, dopamine betahydroxylase deficiency and baroreflex failure. Notably, there has been a large increase in post-COVID patients with POTSlike symptoms. This center is responsible for the development of new treatments, such as repurposing of Droxidopa and | 41

the use of an abdominal binder to prevent orthostatic hypotension.

Research Updates

A major goal of research in Clinical Pharmacology is understanding genetic determinants of drug responses and sensitivity. Using tools such as BioVu and other data bases, investigators in Clinical Pharmacology study responses to drugs like opioids, HMG CoA reductase inhibitors, methotrexate, sulfonylureas, antibiotics and immunosuppressants. A related direction of research employs databases such as the synthetic derivative to understand genetic determinants of laboratory variants with the goal of avoiding unnecessary clinical testing for benign deviations from established norms. Clinical Pharmacology houses VanCART, a multidisciplinary group comprised of geneticists, bioinformatics specialists, structural biologists, cell biologists and basic ion channel biologists who translate detailed genetic information into mechanisms at the molecular and cellular level. A major goal is to translate the basic discoveries into optimal personalized care for patients with abnormal heart rhythms and to new drug development. A group led by Dan Roden, MD, studies genetic causes of arrhythmia and has received both American Heart Association (AHA) and NIH funding to pursue this aim. Members of VanCART and the Roden group use inducible pluripotent stem cells to model human cardiomyocytes and use high throughput approaches to identify genetic and therapeutic interventions to understand and treat rhythm disorders. Dr. Roden is currently the Secretary of the Pharmacogenomics Global Research Network. Also within Clinical Pharmacology is the VCBB, which is directed by Scott Guelcher, PhD (Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering). Research in the VCBB focuses on molecular determinants of bone health and disease, inherited diseases of bone development, cancer-induced bone disease, mechanisms regulating bone remodeling and repair, osteomyelitis, fracture repair and embryonic bone development. Goals are to unravel novel biological mechanisms and to develop new treatments and diagnostic tools that can improve the quality of life for patients with bone destruction due to disease or trauma. The VCBB houses multiple state-of-the-art instruments allowing unique molecular, cellular and biochemical studies, and to precisely quantify changes in bone volume, architecture, biomechanical properties and histology upon gene alterations, growth, aging, disease, trauma, or pharmacologic treatments. Research in the Vanderbilt Autonomic Dysfunction Center focuses on in-depth studies of humans with a variety of disorders of the autonomic nervous system. Drs. Cyndya Shibao and Italo Biaggioni employ highly sophisticated approaches to studies of autonomic function, including direct sympathetic nerve recording, pharmacological interventions, tilt table testing, long term blood pressure and heart rate monitoring and measures of baroreflex sensitivity. Investigators in the Vanderbilt Hypertension Center of Excellence study basic mechanisms of hypertension, including unraveling the interrelationship between hypertension and inflammation. These translational studies involve both experimental animal models and studies of humans. This group works closely with members of the divisions Nephrology and Hypertension, Rheumatology and Immunology, and Infectious Diseases to implement the latest approaches to profiling and study of immune cells in hypertension.

Barbershop Initiative

Together with colleagues in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, the Department of Health Policy, our Hospital pharmacy service, community stakeholders and local barbers, Clinical Pharmacology successfully completed an NIHfunded trial of blood pressure treatment in community barbershops. Performed in collaboration with colleagues at the University of California Los Angeles and Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles, the study showed that pharmacist-directed treatment of hypertensive Black men in this setting could lower blood pressure by over 30 mmHg.

Awards

In the 2020-2021 academic year, the division’s grant portfolio consisted of 17 R01 grants, three R35 Outstanding Investigator Awards, one P50 grant, one U01 grant, one P01 grant and one DP2 grant. Funding was also awarded for two K01, two K08, one K99 and one K12 research career development awards. Additionally, faculty were awarded three Department of Defense-funded awards and eight AHA awards, including AHA’s Strategically Focused Network (SFRN) grants. A highly competitive source of funding for cardiovascular research are the AHA SFRN grants. The Clinical Pharmacology 42 |

division has successfully competed for three of these. Of those, two of them continue to be ongoing; Dr. Knollmann is the Principal Investigator of an SFRN focused on Atrial Fibrillation, and Dr. Roden directs an SFRN to understand mechanisms and genetics of Ventricular Arrhythmias.

Education Updates

The division continues to be heavily involved in research training of post-doctoral fellows and young scientists. In the FY21 year, the division had two NIH T32 training grants to fund training of post-doctoral fellows and graduate students. The Clinical Pharmacology Training grant was also renewed by Dr. Knollmann for its 47th year. Dr. Harrison directs the Vanderbilt Hypertension and Blood Pressure Regulation T32. Nearly all Clinical Pharmacology faculty have fellows training in their research programs.

2020-2021 Fellows • • • • • • • • • • • •

Katherine Black, MD (T32) Daniel Blackwell, PhD Andrei Bombin, PhD John Brannon, PhD (T32) Gwendolyn Davis, PhD Nestor de la Visitacion Pastor, PhD Christian Egly, PharmD, Jason D. Morrow Chief Fellow Daniel Fehrenbach, PhD Matt Fleming, MD, PhD (T32) Jeanne Ishimwe, PhD Pooja Joshi, PhD Bian Li, PhD

Faculty Honors and Awards

• • • • • • • • • •

Jason Meyer, MD (T32) Ananya Nandy, PhD Bin Ni, MD, PhD (T32) Ashley Pitzer, PhD Prashant Raghavendran, DO (T32) Meaghan Ranson, MD, MPH (T32) Mohammad Saleem, PhD Timothy Thayer, MD (T32) Rizwan Ullah, PhD Nataraja Sarma Vaitinadin, MBBS, PhD, MPH • Yuko Wada, PhD • Qiong Wu, PhD

• Matthew R. Alexander, MD, PhD, was the recipient of the ASCI Young PhysicianScientist Award • Italo Biaggioni, MD, was elected to membership in one of the nation’s oldest and most respected honor societies, the Association of American Physicians; was named a Distinguished Scientist of the AHA, and received the 2021 AHA Lifetime Achievement Award • Vivian Kawai, MD, MPH, received an LRA-BMS Accelerator Award from the Lupus Research Alliance and Bristol Myers Squibb. • Annet Kirabo, PhD, was awarded the 2020 AHA Harry Goldblatt Award for Early Career Investigators • Dan M. Roden, MD, was awarded the F. Peter Guengerich, PhD, Award for Excellence in Teaching, and was the recipient of the Oscar B. Hunter Career Awards in Therapeutics at the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Annual Meeting • Cyndya Shibao, MD, MSCI, and Italo Biaggioni, MD, were named Program Director and Co-Director, respectively, for the newly accredited Clinical Fellowship in Automimic Disorders

2020-2021 FACULTY PROFESSORS

Italo Biaggioni, MD Andre Deidrich, MD, PhD Fernando Elijovich, MD David G. Harrison, MD Bjorn Knollmann, MD, PhD Cheryl Laffer, MD, PhD Katherine Murray, MD Dan Mark Roden, MDCM Donna Seger, MD C. Michael Stein, MD Tao Yang, PhD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS Venkataraman Amarnath, PhD Wei Chen, MD, PhD Sergey Dikalov, PhD Alfredo Gamboa, MD, MSCI James Luther, MD, MSCI Meenakshi Madhur, MD, PhD Ginger Milne, PhD Julie Sterling Rhoades, PhD Cyndya Shibao, MD, MSCI

ASSISTANT PROFESSORS Matt Alexander, MD, PhD* Rebecca Bruccoleri, MD Swati Dey, PhD Anna Dikalova, PhD QiPing Feng, PhD Jorge Gamboa, MD, PhD Andrew Glazer, PhD* Jose Gomez, PhD Rachelle Johnson, PhD Vivian Kawai, MD, MPH Annet Kirabo, PhD Brett Kroncke, PhD Jonathan Mosley, MD, PhD Luis Okamoto, MD David Patrick, MD, PhD* Sun Peck, PhD Dungeng Peng, PhD Elizabeth Rendina-Ruedy, PhD Zhenjiang Yang, MD, PhD

ASSISTANTS IN MEDICINE Lan Jiang, MS

INSTRUCTORS

Kyungsoo Kim, PhD* Dmytro Kryshtal, PhD Justin Van Beusecum, PhD* Lili Wang, PhD* Liang Xiao, PhD

* New faculty in FY21

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DIABETES, ENDOCRINOLOGY AND METABOLISM In FY21, we continued our rich tradition of clinical, investigative and training excellence in the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism. With more than 50 faculty members, the division has a wide range of clinical programs and clinical and basic science research. Despite the COVID-related challenges, this past year was marked by our faculty’s innovation and collaboration in patient care and research. The division provides a broad range of state-of-the-art inpatient and outpatient care at two hospitals, Vanderbilt University Adult Hospital and the Nashville VA Hospital, with faculty and fellows at both institutions. Faced with the disruptions related to the pandemic, our clinical faculty quickly adapted, providing telemedicine or remote clinical care for more than 100 patients per day. We devised new clinical paradigms and discovered new ways to provide high-quality patient care. Our excellence in clinical care was recognized by Vanderbilt being named one of the best programs in Diabetes and Endocrinology by U.S. News & World Report. Investigators in the division conducted biomedical research ranging from laboratorybased to clinical investigation to outcomes and quality research on diabetes, metabolism, obesity and metabolic bone disease. Despite the disruption in research during COVID, our scientists made discoveries about the pathogenesis of diabetes, tested new ways to treat metabolic bone disorders and developed new ways to augment the insulinproducing cells in the pancreas.

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ALVIN POWERS, MD Professor of Medicine Director, Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism

Drs. Katie Coate (L) and Jeeyeon Cha (R) shed light on diabetes and COVID-19 in study published in Cell Metabolism

Clinical Updates

Our faculty have specialized expertise in diabetes, metabolic bone disease, pituitary disorders, thyroid disease and rare endocrine disorders. Our faculty, including Shichun Bao, MD, PhD, provided outstanding clinical care for individuals with diabetes by expanding the technologies that allow one to measure the blood glucose in real time and to use advanced insulin delivery technology to better control the blood glucose and thus reduce the complications of diabetes. Our multidisciplinary Pituitary Center, led by Andrea Utz, MD, PhD, provided specialized medical and surgical care to those with pituitary tumors or masses. Lindsay Bischoff, MD, led our Thyroid Center, which developed new approaches to the diagnosis and management of thyroid disorders, including thyroid cancer. Dr. Bishcoff was also involved in developing guidelines for the management of thyroid nodule and thyroid cancer. Kathryn Dahir, MD, provided leadership for a national program for metabolic bone disorders with patients coming from more than 20 states to receive care at Vanderbilt. Dr. Dahir also led studies testing new treatments for rare metabolic bone disorders such as X-Linked Hypophosphatemia and Hypophosphatasia. The latter is characterized by defective bone and teeth mineralization which leads to “soft” bones, and is caused by a deficiency in alkaline phosphatase. Replacement of this enzyme is a new form of therapy for Hypophosphatasia; Dr. Dahir is part of a group developing clinical guidelines for the treatment of this disorder. Gitanjali Srivastava, MD, the Director of Vanderbilt’s Medical Weight Loss program, introduced new medications to assist weight loss and developed clinical pathways to identify individuals most likely to benefit from surgical therapies for obesity. Michelle Griffith, MD, led our division and department efforts related to telemedicine, allowing individuals to receive continued medical care during the time when in-person clinic operations were greatly reduced. Chase Hendrickson, MD, MPH, was named as Medical Director of the adult Eskind Diabetes Clinic, a multi-disciplinary clinic with more than 40,000 visits each year.

Research Updates

Our scientists and physician-scientists investigated how cells send and receive signals, how metabolic diseases such as diabetes and dyslipidemia develop, and tested new approaches to assess the blood glucose non-invasively. Maureen Gannon, PhD, discovered new ways to stimulate the growth of insulin-producing cells and was awarded grants to pursue these studies. Drs. Katie Coate and Jeeyeon Cha made critical discoveries about whether the SARS-CoV-2 virus could infect insulin-producing cells and concluded that this was not the reason for the association between COVID and diabetes. Others such as Alvin Powers, MD, advocated for early vaccination for individuals with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Marcela Brissova, PhD, led a national program to characterize how human islets secrete insulin and glucagon, | 47

thus facilitating the diabetes-related research of more than 100 investigators in the United States. Drs. Powers and Brissova received new NIH grants to study the pancreatic dysfunction in type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Drs. Diane Saunders and Brissova created the first atlas of pancreatic islet images and made “Pancreatlas” available to scientists throughout the world. Danielle Dean, PhD, described a mechanism for the growth of glucagon-producing cells, noting that these cells are amino acid sensors. Raymond Blind, PhD, was awarded two NIH grants for his studies on how lipid molecules interact with nuclear receptors. Fiona Harrison, PhD, continued to lead the Mouse Behavioral Core, impacting the research of numerous Vanderbilt investigators. She is also overseeing a Pilot and Feasibility program that is promoting research at the intersection of Alzheimer’s Disease and diabetes. John Stafford, MD, PhD, was awarded a new grant to examine the relationship between HDL cholesterol and COVID infection. Kevin Niswender, MD, PhD, continues to lead a multidisciplinary team funded by the AHA to focus on, and explore the mechanisms of, action for GLP-1 analogues, a diabetes and obesity treatment. Mona Mashayekhi, MD, PhD, showed that the glucose response to a meal was influenced by genetic variation in the GLP-1 receptor. Research by Kathryn Dahir, MD, on metabolic bone disorders provided insight into the diagnosis and management of hypophosphatasia and tumor-induced osteomalacia. Dr. Bao’s research provided new information on the use of continuous glucose monitoring in type 2 diabetes and in the inpatient setting. Research funding in the division expanded with investigators supported by the NIH, the AHA, the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation International the Research Service of the Veterans Association, as well as private foundations and pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Cha was selected to receive a prestigious Burroughs Wellcome physician-scientist award. Additionally, our faculty members continued to provide leadership in the research enterprise with Dr. Niswender directing the Clinical Research Center and Dr. Powers leading Vanderbilt’s NIH-funded Diabetes Research Center.

Education Updates

Training the next generation of physicians and scientists is a major part of our mission and involves an Endocrinology Training Program and a Medical Student Research Program. We welcomed three physicians to our endocrinology fellowship program and one to our recently started Obesity Fellowship Program. Drs. Bischoff and Chase Hendrickson lead the Endocrinology Training Program, and Dr. Srivastava, assisted by Dr. Niswender, leads the Obesity Fellowship Program. Our fellows in endocrinology presented abstracts at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society and conducted a quality improvement project under the supervision of Dr. Hendrickson. Most notably, we successfully renewed our NIH T32 training grant for post-doctoral fellows in 2020. This is one of the oldest training grants at Vanderbilt, having been in place for more than 40 years. Led by Drs. Niswender and James May, this grant supports the career development and research of PhD and MD post-doctoral fellows. Dr. Stafford leads the Vanderbilt Student Research Program that is funded by a NIH T35 training grant and supports 32 medical students who conduct diabetes, renal, or GI research in the summer between the first and second year of medical school. Dr. Stafford also oversees a national program supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) where medical students conduct diabetes-related research at one of 15 NIH-funded Diabetes Research Centers. Because of the COVID pandemic, Dr. Stafford creatively reconfigured these programs so that student research was conducted remotely.

2020-2021 Fellows Endocrine Fellows • Karolina Anderson, MD • Monica Bhanot, MD, PhD • Sally Friedman, MD • Laura Heller, MD • Ashley Jancuska, MD • Dan Tilden, MD • AJ Williams, MD

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Post-doctoral Fellows • Uche Anozie, PhD • Karin Bosma, PhD • Pratima Chapagain, PhD • Zeinab Haratipour, PhD • Brittany Spitznagel, PhD • Elizabeth Stivison, PhD • Jordyn Wilcox, PhD

Faculty Honors and Awards

• Lindsay Bischoff, MD, was named Vice Chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and Vice Chair of the Thyroid Cancer Guidelines • Raymond Blind, PhD, was appointed to the Cellular Signaling and Regulatory Systems Study Section; delivered a plenary lecture, “Strategies for Medical Education in the Developing World” at the Global Public Health Symposium in Sri Lanka; and received the Presidential Membership Award from the Genetics Society of America • Marcela Brissova, PhD, was appointed to the Basic Mechanisms of Diabetes and Metabolism Study Section • Jeeyeon Cha, MD, PhD, received a 2021 Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Medical Scientists • Kathryn Dahir, MD, is leading international clinic research programs targeting metabolic bone diseases including Hypophosphatasia, X Linked Hypophosphatemia, tumor induced osteomalacia, osteogenesis imperfecta and fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva • Maureen Gannon, PhD, was a Visiting Professor at the University of California Los Angeles Larry Hillblom Islet Research Center • Alvin Powers, MD, was named Councilor of the American Association of Physicians; received a VA Senior Clinical Scientist Award from the VA Research Service; and the Outstanding Educator Award from the Endocrine Society • Gitanjali Srivastava, MD, was named Vice Chair of the Obesity Medicine Fellowship Council Group Leadership Team • John Stafford, MD, PhD, was appointed to the American Diabetes Association Cardiovascular Interest Group Leadership Team and to the Pathophysiology of Obesity and Metabolic Disease Study Section

2020-2021 FACULTY PROFESSORS

Marcela Brissova, PhD Kathryn Dahir, MD Maureen Gannon, PhD Shubhada Jagasia, MD James May, MD Alvin Powers, MD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS Shichun Bao, MD, PhD Howard Baum, MD Lindsay Bischoff, MD Gisella Carranza Leon, MD Chunhua Dai, MD Michael Fowler, MD Michelle Griffith, MD Fiona Harrison, PhD Kevin Niswender, MD, PhD Gitanjali Srivastava, MD John Stafford, MD, PhD Melissa Wellons, MD

ASSISTANT PROFESSORS Katherine Bachmann, MD, MSCI Raymond Blind, PhD Anna Beth Bradley, MD* Danielle Dean, PhD Paul Epstein, MD Chase Hendrickson, MD, MPH Leslee Matheny, MD Michael May, MD, PhD Richard Printz, PhD Andrea Ramirez, MD, MSCI Chanhaeng Rhee, MD Andrea Utz, MD, PhD Syeda Zaidi, MD Lin Zhu, MD, PhD

ASSISTANTS IN MEDICINE Jennifer Bradley, MSN Anne Brown, RN, MSN Brannan Cole, MSN Norma Edwards, MSN Ann Hackett, MSN Regina Hamlet, MSN Brett Kinzig, RN, MSN Janie Lipps Hagan, MSN Tiffanie Marksbury, DNP James Mills, RN, MSN Connie Root, RN, MSN Blake Salmony, RN, MSN

INSTRUCTORS

Jeeyeon Cha, MD, PhD* Katie Coate, PhD Mona Mashayekhi, MD, PhD* Diane Saunders, PhD* Sahar Takkouche, MD* Jordan Wright, MD, PhD* Sophia Yu, MD

* New faculty in FY21

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EPIDEMIOLOGY The Division of Epidemiology is committed to conducting research to enhance our understanding of the distribution and determinants of disease and inequities in health in diverse populations, to promoting collaboration aimed at the translation of research into strategies of disease prevention and health care delivery, and to training independent investigators in epidemiology research and disease prevention. The division has considerable strengths in international epidemiologic research and training, and has WEI ZHENG, MD, PHD, MPH Professor of Medicine close ties with multiple domestic and international institutions that further our mission Director, Division of Epidemiology to improve human health. In the last academic year, nearly all division faculty members have performed collaborative research with investigators from other divisions and departments at VUMC or other institutions to address significant questions related to health and clinical outcomes. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, our division faculty and staff have worked primarily remote during this time. Despite the challenges of remote working, we have made considerable progress in research and training. Our faculty have been successful in obtaining almost a dozen large federally funded research grants in the 2020-2021 academic year, including several that involve collaboration with investigators at other institutions. We have continued to engage with each other and with our research teams to maintain highly productive research and, most importantly, to support each other in an informal way through more frequent faculty Zoom meetings, research updates, and virtual networking for faculty and trainees. As a non-clinical division, we have found other critical ways to support and contribute to the Department of Medicine and VUMC COVID-19 response over the past year. Several of our faculty led PPE fundraising drives and donations of more than 10,000 surgical/NK95 masks and other PPE to VUMC and local hospitals. Beginning in March 2020, under the leadership of Loren Lipworth, ScD, the Division of Epidemiology compiled and distributed weekly (and later biweekly) COVID-19 Literature Summaries to the VUMC community and beyond. The goal of this effort was to critically review the rapidly emerging data from around the world, and to deliver the most relevant and timely COVID-19 statistics and research findings related to clinical presentation 50 |

Andreana Holowatyj, MD, PhD, presented at the 2021 AACR Annual Meeting on ongoing research using the international cancer registry, AACR Project GENIE

and management, epidemiology, immune response, treatment and vaccine research in support of VUMC’s clinical and research response to the pandemic. Over 1,000 papers were reviewed, and detailed summaries for more than 350 papers were provided. Over 15 faculty members in the Division of Epidemiology, as well as several Epidemiology PhD students and post-doctoral fellows, contributed to the reviews. In addition, Holly Algood, PhD (Infectious Diseases), played a major role in leading the reviews of papers related to immunology and immune response, and additional Infectious Diseases faculty provided critical clinical and infectious diseases input on all summaries. COVID-19 Literature Summaries, although not published on a biweekly basis, continue to be developed. Early in the pandemic, division faculty quickly submitted and received funding for a supplemental application to evaluate the effects of COVID-19 within the Southern Community Cohort Study, one of the division’s ongoing prospective cohort studies that includes primarily Black and low-income participants in the Southeastern United States. The primary goals of the study were to evaluate racial/ethnic, socioeconomic, geographic, and urban/rural disparities in well-being and lifestyle behaviors resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic containment and mitigation efforts; and to evaluate racial/ ethnic, socioeconomic, geographic, and urban/rural disparities in health care access during the COVID-19 pandemic. This included assessing access to SARS-CoV-2 testing, as well as routine and urgent clinical care. The supplement grant enabled us to administer an additional follow-up survey focused on COVID-19 pandemic effects within the cohort, and inclusion of additional neighborhood contextual data about the cohort. This study generated important findings, including those related to delayed medical care and reasons for vaccine acceptance or hesitance, that help inform individual-level and community-level public health interventions among vulnerable populations already at high risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe outcomes. The division’s strong commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, and to reducing health disparities provided an opportunity for us to initiate a yearlong virtual Health Equity Seminar Series. The biweekly presentations brought together multidisciplinary experts across Vanderbilt University, VUMC, Meharry Medical College and numerous other institutions with the goal of learning and improving methodologies, informatics and other research tools to advance health equity.

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Research Updates

Faculty in the Division of Epidemiology share a broad interest in the research of genetics, biomarkers, nutrition, lifestyle and other environmental factors. Research areas include epidemiology of cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and infectious diseases, as well as clinical outcomes. Division investigators direct approximately 50 externally-funded research projects and training programs, including three large population-based prospective cohort studies with more than 225,000 study participants. Other ongoing research includes multiple large studies that use genomics and other -omics data to identify genes and biomarkers for cancers and other chronic diseases and understand the biological underpinnings for the development of these common diseases. In the last year, nine division faculty were awarded NIH funding for 11 new research projects, for a total of over $20 million in new award funding. Also in FY21, Epidemiology Center researchers published almost 400 research papers in peer-reviewed biomedical journals, addressing a large range of significant issues related to the epidemiology, etiology, genetics and prevention of cancer and multiple other chronic diseases. From among many papers published in high-impact scientific journals in FY21, the following 10 papers received Epidemiology Center awards for top research papers: • Transmission of SARS-COV-2 Infections in Households - Tennessee and Wisconsin, April-September 2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2020 Nov 6;69(44):1631-1634. doi: 10.15585/mmwr.mm6944e1. PMID: 33151916; PMCID: PMC7643897. • Racial/Ethnic Disparities in All-Cause Mortality among Patients Diagnosed with Triple-Negative Breast Cancer. Cancer Res. 2021 Feb 15;81(4):1163-1170. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-20-3094. Epub 2020 Dec 3. PMID: 33272926. • Risk of Incident Diabetes Mellitus, Weight Gain, and their Relationships with Integrase Inhibitor-based Initial Antiretroviral Therapy Among Persons with HIV in the US and Canada. Clin Infect Dis. 2020 Sep 16:ciaa1403. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciaa1403. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 32936919. • A Mendelian randomization analysis of circulating lipid traits and breast cancer risk. Int J Epidemiol. 2020 Aug 1;49(4):1117-1131. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyz242. PMID: 31872213; PMCID: PMC7750975. • Identifying Novel Susceptibility Genes for Colorectal Cancer Risk From a Transcriptome-Wide Association Study of 125,478 Subjects. Gastroenterology. 2021 Mar;160(4):1164-1178.e6. doi: 10.1053/j.gastro.2020.08.062. Epub 2020 Oct 12. PMID: 33058866; PMCID: PMC7956223. • Identification of novel breast cancer susceptibility loci in meta-analyses conducted among Asian and European descendants. Nat Commun. 2020 Mar 5;11(1):1217. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-15046-w. PMID: 32139696; PMCID: PMC7057957. • Social distancing measures: evidence of interruption of seasonal influenza activity and early lessons of the SARSCoV-2 pandemic. Clin Infect Dis. 2020 Jun 20:ciaa834. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciaa834. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 32562538; PMCID: PMC7337694. • Early-Onset Appendiceal Cancer Survival by Race or Ethnicity in the United States. Gastroenterology. 2020 Oct;159(4):1605-1608. doi10.1053/j.gastro.2020.06.011. Epub 2020 Jun 13. PMID: 32540351. • Adherence to dietary recommendations and colorectal cancer risk: results from two prospective cohort studies. Int J Epidemiol. 2020 Feb 1;49(1):270-280. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyz118. PMID: 31203367; PMCID: PMC7124505. • Associations of choline-related nutrients with cardiometabolic and all-cause mortality: results from 3 prospective cohort studies of blacks, whites, and Chinese. Am J Clin Nutr. 2020 Mar 1;111(3):644-656. doi: 10.1093/ajcn/ nqz318. PMID: 31915809; PMCID: PMC7049525.

Education Updates

The doctoral program in Epidemiology at Vanderbilt University, led by Peter Rebeiro, PhD (Infectious Diseases), welcomed its first cohort of students in 2010. To date, 27 trainees have received the doctoral degree. With the addition of the Fall 2021 cohort, 24 students will be enrolled in the program. The goal of the epidemiology PhD program is to train independent scientists by advancing students’ knowledge and proficiency in using epidemiologic methods to produce valid inferences and inform public health practice. Though foundations for methodologic rigor in epidemiology should be laid within the MPH program, the PhD program seeks to enhance students’ knowledge of epidemiologic theory and technical data science skills beyond those achieved within the master’s curriculum. Upon completing the doctoral 52 |

program in epidemiology, graduates are prepared to develop an independent research portfolio in academia, public health agencies, or industry. The program aims to train critical thinkers prepared to make fundamental advances using rigorous methods and cutting-edge analytic approaches. Graduates contribute across a wide spectrum of content areas and research foci within epidemiology and public health. During the 2020-2021 academic year, the PhD program transitioned to virtual teaching and virtually administered six comprehensive exams, six qualifying proposal defenses and three dissertation defenses. All students successfully completed those assessments. The program also offered a variety of virtual programming which included a monthly journal club on health inequities and a summer book club. The program hosted its annual interviews virtually for 17 prospective students, and will welcome seven of them for the 2021-2022 academic year. The Vanderbilt Training Program in Molecular and Genetic Epidemiology of Cancer (MAGEC), led by Xiao Ou Shu, MD, PhD, has trained 17 fellows and has 25 mentors. The goal of the MAGEC training program is to equip post-doctoral fellows from a variety of disciplines and diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds with the methodological tools, practical laboratory and survey research knowledge, and hands-on research and grant writing experience necessary to launch an independent career in the molecular and genetic epidemiology of cancer. The division continues to provide an individualized training program to MAGEC fellows, and has created several new training initiatives and programs during the past year. These include organizing an ongoing manuscript preparation working group to increase interaction among fellows and to promote peer-to-peer mentoring to help support manuscript drafting, review and journal submission; offering a molecular epidemiology lab training and rotation; and broadening strategies to actively search for candidates, particularly from underrepresented minority groups, to fill open MAGEC fellowship positions.

2020-2021 Fellows • • • • •

Jungyoon Choi, PhD Héctor Díaz-Zabala, PhD Linh Duong, PhD Lei Fan, MD, PhD, MPH Jaleesa Moore, DrPh

Faculty Honors and Awards

• • • • •

Xionfei Pan, PhD Jie Ping, PhD Christopher Shidal, PhD Hyung-Suk (Alex) Yoon, PhD Yingya Zhao, PhD

2020-2021 FACULTY PROFESSORS

John Boice, ScD Qiuyin Cai, MD, PhD Qi Dai, MD, PhD Douglas Heimburger, MD Loren Lipworth, ScD Martha Shrubsole, PhD Xiao-Ou Shu, MD, PhD, MPH Gong Yang, MD, MPH Wei Zheng, MD, PhD, MPH

• Alicia Beeghly-Fadiel, PhD, was awarded an inaugural 2021 Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center Research Award for her paper, “A Mendelian randomization analysis of circulating lipid traits and breast cancer risk” • John Boice, PhD, was awarded the 2020 National Cancer Institute Director’s ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS Hui Cai, MD, PhD Award Todd Edwards, PhD • Andreana Holowatyj, PhD, was awarded a 2020 Young Investigator Award, Xingyi Guo, PhD Long, PhD Oncology Research Information and Exchange Network (ORIEN) Foundation; a Jirong Wanqing Wen, MD, MPH 2020 AACR Merit Award, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR); a 2020 ACG Presidential Poster Award, American College of Gastroenterology ASSISTANT PROFESSORS (ACG) 2020 Annual Meeting; and a 2020 ACG Outstanding Poster Presenter Alicia Beeghly-Fadiel, MPH, PhD Andreana Holowatyj, PhD Award, ACG 2020 Annual Meeting Yinghao (Timothy) Su, MD, PhD • Loren Lipworth, ScD, was awarded a Department of Medicine 2021 COVID-19 Staci Sudenga, PhD Service Award for her preparation of weekly COVID-19 Literature Summaries, Yacob Tedla, PhD* Danxia Yu, PhD and her contribution to the VUMC COVID-19 pandemic response Xiangzhu Zhu, MD, MPH • Jirong Long, PhD, was awarded an inaugural 2021 Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center Research Award for her paper, “An integrative multi-omics analysis to INSTRUCTORS Shu, MS, PhD identify candidate DNA methylation biomarkers related to prostate cancer risk” Xiang Yaohua Yang, PhD* • Peter Rebeiro, PhD, was awarded the inaugural 2021 Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center Teaching Award • Wei Zheng, MD, PhD, MPH, was named Associate Director of Population Sciences Research at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center * New faculty in FY21

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GASTROENTEROLOGY, HEPATOLOGY AND NUTRITION The Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at Vanderbilt University Medical Center has a long and rich history. Comprised of physician-scientists, clinician-educators, medical center clinicians, mid-level providers and research-track investigators, the division has tripled in size since 2004. Clinical care, research and education – the three strong, interactive components that galvanize the division – continued to flourish in the 2020-2021 academic year. Collaborative scientific efforts RICHARD M. PEEK, JR., MD Professor of Medicine within the division led to major investigative discoveries such as development of a Director, Division of Crohn’s disease Gut Single Cell Atlas, and a single cell atlas for colorectal adenomas. Gastroentrology, Hepatology and As a result of our research efforts, the division received approximately $11 million in Nutrition federal and foundation direct funds and had a total research portfolio of $42 million. The Vanderbilt Fellowship Program in Digestive Diseases also saw substantial growth. The fellowship expanded in number with 18 post-doctoral fellows per year in specialty training programs sponsored by the division, including Gastroenterology (GI) and Hepatology, Liver Transplantation, Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and Advanced Endoscopy. The GI fellowship program also remained in the top tier of Gastroenterology Fellowship Training Programs in the country, receiving over 500 applications for five available positions. Finally, we have achieved an 80% matriculation rate into academic medicine over the last five years and all of our 2021 graduating fellows remain in academic gastroenterology today. The division also continued to deliver compassionate and outstanding patient care in 2020-2021 despite challenges of the pandemic. In 2020, the clinical gastroenterology footprint was expanded with the opening of a new state-of-the-art endoscopic facility and IBD clinic at OHO and, collectively, the division performed over 25,000 procedures in the last academic year. All of the patient-centric Clinical Centers of Excellence housed within the division made large strides in both scope and innovation. The Vanderbilt IBD Center introduced point-of-care ultrasound into the practice while the Vanderbilt GI Motility Center developed mucosal integrity testing, The Vanderbilt Pancreaticobiliary Center successfully launched an endoscopic esophageal myotomy program for non-surgical management of esophageal (E-POEM) and gastric (G-POEM) motility disorders, as well as a new service for direct endoscopic-ultrasound-guided portal 54 |

(L to R): Assistant Nurse Manager Caley Dismore, Manager Nikki Smith and Drs. Elizabeth Scoville, David Schwartz, Baldeep Pabla, Sara Horst, Robin Dalal and Dawn Beaulieu at Vanderbilt One Hundred Oaks Endoscopy

pressure measurements. The Center for Human Nutrition created a new preceptorship for Celiac and Enteral Feedings for dietetic internship students and developed six new clinical programs and quality improvement initiatives. Finally, the Hepatology section and the VUMC liver transplant program performed 127 transplants last year, including its first living liver donor transplant. On the basis of all of these exceptional clinical efforts, the Vanderbilt Gastroenterology program was designated as a high performing specialty program by U.S. News & World Report.

Clinical Updates

The Vanderbilt IBD Center had a banner year, which included the opening a new clinic and endoscopy laboratory at OHO. The Center led efforts in telehealth with over 50% of visits via telehealth, and added one MD and two PA/NPs to improve patient access. A new grant-funded IBD website was also developed to highlight the new clinic and endoscopy lab, and help patients with change in venue. The IBD clinic was among one of the first centers of its kind in the United States to introduce point-of-care ultrasound. Additionally, the clinic obtained a $200,000 private donor grant to explore cardiovascular risk in patients with IBD. The Hepatology Section hired two new MD faculty and expanded telehealth to Madison, Tenn., and Huntsville, Ala. The Transplant service performed 127 transplants in 2020-2021, and new research was funded to investigate the role of the microbiome in liver transplant outcomes. The GI Motility Service introduced the Vanderbilt-developed mucosal integrity testing, and expanded wireless pH monitoring, high-resolution manometry, anorectal manometry and gastric emptying studies. The Motility Unit also published several high impact articles in Gastroenterology and Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and delivered 14 presentations at annual national and international meetings. The Advanced Endoscopy Program successfully implemented an endoscopic esophageal myotomy program for nonsurgical management of E-POEM and G-POEM motility disorders, which is currently averaging two to three POEM procedures per week. A new service for direct endoscopic-ultrasound-guided portal pressure measurements was | 55

developed, as well as a new industry partnership with CDx Diagnostics in the design and safety-feasibility testing of a novel tissue acquisition device for diagnosis of bile duct cancer at endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography. Vanderbilt is the lead center in an upcoming multicenter prospective randomized study. Finally, new philanthropic support was acquired to fund a study identifying novel biomarkers for cholangiocarcinoma. The Center for Human Nutrition hired two new MD faculty to support the Celiac program, published eleven manuscripts, chapters, and commentaries in top peer-reviewed journals and delivered 13 presentations at annual national and international meetings. The Center also created a new preceptorship for Celiac and Enteral Feedings for dietetic internship students and developed six new Clinical Programs and Quality Improvement Initiatives.

Research Updates

The GI division biomedical investigative program continued to focus on utilization of innovative technologies to develop a deeper understanding of GI pathophysiology in order to identify new disease mechanisms and novel therapeutic targets. In 2020-2021, the division renewed and maintained several large multidisciplinary grants including two Program Project Grants on Helicobacter pylori and disease, an NIH GI SPORE grant, an NCI Moonshot grant, an NIH Digestive Diseases Research Center grant, a Helmsley Charitable Trust Atlas Grant, and hired two new research faculty. In addition to receiving $11 million in federal and foundation funds and a total of $42 million in overall research funding, the division housed the Editorship of Gastroenterology which achieved a record high Impact Factor of 22.8. The division’s Clinical Research Enterprise added 21 industry-sponsored studies to the portfolio and executed two new research agreements for investigator-initiated projects in FY21. During the year, staff supported all regulatory activities for 98 new submissions and 112 ongoing submissions to the Institutional Review Board, provided coordinator support for 17 unfunded research projects, created and maintained over 120 REDCap databases, and performed over 1,600 sponsored research visits. In addition to the primary services offered by the GI clinical research enterprise, the clinical research program was selected by the VUMC Office of Research as one of three divisions to pilot the SignalPath platform for financial management of clinical research, and the only division selected to pilot the budgeting module of the platform.

Education Updates

The GI fellowship program thrived last year and expanded from 12 to 15 slots, with five per year. The program remained in the top tier of Gastroenterology Fellowship Training Programs in the country by receiving over 500 applications for five available positions. Trainees delivered multiple peer-reviewed first-author oral and poster presentations at annual national and international meetings and published 12 manuscripts in top peer-reviewed journals including Hepatology and Gastrointestinal Endoscopy.

2020-2021 Fellows

Gastroenterology • Audrey Bennett, MD • Sara Brown, MD • Adil Faqih, MD • Catherine Filley Howe, MD • Jason Heckert, MD • Neil Kapil, MD • Pooja Lal, MD

Faculty Honors and Awards

• • • • •

Alexander Mamunes, MD Francesca Raffa, MD Shakirat Salvador, MD Ankita Munjal Sisselman, MD Ashley Spann, MD

Advanced Endoscopy • Jordan Orr, MD

• Dawn Adams, MD, was appointed Medical Advisor of the National Celiac Association Tennessee Chapter; Short Bowel Syndrome Expert International Consortium; and was named Director of Webinar development committee, North American Society for the Study of Celiac Disease • Sara Horst, MD, MPH, was the recipient of a Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation Tennessee Chapter Champion Award • Manhal Izzy, MD, was named Chair of the Education and Scholarship Committee of The International Liver Transplantation Society (ILTS), and Co-founder of the REAL (Regional Expansion of Advanced Learning) program for liver transplant education in developing countries (sponsored by ILTS)

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• Rishi Naik, MD, MSCI, became a member of the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) Mentoring program Task Force, the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Congressional Advocates Program, AGA’s Quality Leadership Council, ACG’s Training Committee, the ACG Young Physician Leadership Scholars’ Program, and AGA’s Academy of Educators; and was named Co-Director of the Vanderbilt GI Update course • Keith Obstein, MD, MPH, was named Councilor of the Association of Specialty Professors, Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine (AAIM), and received Best Video Award from the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy • Dan Patel, MD, becamse a member of AGA’s Digestive Disease Week committee on Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease, the International Foundation for Gastrointestinal Disorders Junior Academicians Committee, and the International Society for Diseases of the Esophagus Communications Committee; was named Esophageal Motility Course Director for GI fellows and EXCITE mentor and coach; and was selected as the Internal Medicine Residency research liaison for the GI Division • Richard M. Peek, Jr., MD, was elected as a 2020 Fellow to the American Association for the Advancement of Science • Shabnam Sarker, MD, became a member of the ACG Public Relations Committee; was named Diversity Liaison for Department of Medicine; became a member of the department’s Interoperability Group Committee; was named Course Director for Advanced Clinical Experience in Gastroenterology for medical students; and served as Portfolio Coach for VUSM • Alexandra Shingina, MD, MSCI, was a recipient of AGA’s Maria A. Leo-Lieber Scholarship, and completed an MSCI in Clinical Epidemiology • Sarah Short, PhD, was a recipient of AGA’s Maria A. Leo-Lieber Scholarship • Chris Williams, MD, PhD, was named Chair of AAIM Research Committee; was named Co-Chair of the ASCI Physician Scientist Development Committee; became a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) MD/PhD Steering Committee Member; and was named Chair of the AAMC Post-Graduate Physicians Scientist Education Committee

2020-2021 FACULTY PROFESSORS

Joseph Awad, MD Robert Coffey, MD Alain Gobert, PhD Christopher Lind, MD Richard M. Peek, Jr.,MD Michael Porayko, MD David Schwartz, MD Heidi Silver, PhD Walter Smalley, MD Michael Vaezi, MD, PhD Christopher Williams, MD, PhD Keith Wilson, MD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS Dawn Beaulieu, MD Sara Horst, MD, MPH Dawn Israel, PhD Reid Ness, MD, MPH Keith Obstein, MD, MPH Maria Blanca Piazuelo, MD Patrick Yachimski, MD, MPH

ASSISTANT PROFESSORS Dawn Wiese Adams, MD Muhammad Aslam, MBBS Miles Basil, MD* Zheng Cao, MD, PhD

Yash Choksi, MD Lori Coburn, MD Robin Ligler Dalal, MD William Fiske, MD, MPH Jeffrey Franklin, PhD Anthony Gamboa, MD Jeremy Goettel, PhD Manhal Izzy, MD Lloyd G. King, MD Brad Maltz, MD Stephanie McAbee, MD Mark Miller, MD* Rishi Naik, MD, MSCI Jennifer Noto, PhD Baldeep Pabla, MD, MSCI Dhyanesh (Dan) Patel, MD Roman Perri, MD Neil Price, MD* Shabnam Sarker, MD Andrew Scanga, MD Elizabeth Scoville, MD, MSCI Alexandra Shingina, MD, MSCI Carolina Sierra, PhD Bhuminder Singh, PhD Terrence Smith, MD Giovanni Suarez, PhD Eric Sumner, MD Lydia Wroblewski, PhD Juliana Yang, MD

Qin Zhang, PhD

ASSISTANTS IN MEDICINE

Kimberly Akinyele, BSN, MSN, FNP-BC Kristi Albergo, PA-C Kim Annis, MS, PA-C Sarah Campbell, LCSW Laura Craddock, MSN, RN, ACNP-BC Maria Cruz, MSN, APRN Kimberly Currier, BBA, RN, MSN, ACNP-BC Claire Davis, MSN, FNP-C Caroline Duley, MSN, NP Sara Hedrich, BSN, RN, MSN, FNP-C Jennifer Pollice-Meservy, APN, BSN, MS, CS, NP-C Valerie Shields, PA-C Ashley Singleton, MSN, ACNP-BC Julianne Wagnon, JD, MSN, FNP-BC Sherry Wright, MSN, ANP-BC

INSTRUCTORS

Matthew Bechard, PhD* Curtis Gabriel, MD, PhD* James Higginbotham, PhD Dennis Jeppesen, PhD Nicholas Markham, MD, PhD* Jordan Orr, MD* Sarah Short, PhD * New faculty in FY21

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GENETIC MEDICINE The Division of Genetic Medicine continues to thrive in both its research and clinical missions. Research in the division has grown substantially over the past six years, and we had $24.3 million in total grant activity in the 2020-2021 academic year. Our publications included methods development in predictive transcriptomics in Nature Genetics, machine learning approaches for identifying those who should have genetic testing in Nature Medicine, and division efforts in COVID host genetics published in Nature and Nature Communications, and the American Journal of Human Genetics. Our faculty engage in substantial research in underserved populations for research in breast cancer, including development of practice guidelines, recommendations for addressing disparities in lung cancer screening availability and pioneering studies in diverse ancestries. Our faculty also lead national efforts in electronic health records diagnoses for neuropsychiatric disease, and international consortia on suicide, genetic studies of diabetes and related traits in populations of recent African ancestries, genetic studies of lipids and cardio-metabolic traits in Hispanic populations, lung cancer disparities research, and breast cancer disparities research. Our new faculty are already well known for their research in clonal hematopoiesis, discovery of the genetic basis for immune disease and development of novel of approaches for Mendelian Randomization studies in the context of gene-based drug targets. Faculty and trainees continued to thrive, receiving promotions and awards for their research efforts. Doug Shaw (Below Lab) delivered a Plenary Talk at last fall’s American Society of Human Genetics meetings on his machine learning approach to electronic health records diagnoses of stuttering, and Kritika Singh (Davis Lab) was among the 2021 winners of the Dean’s Award for Exceptional Achievement for Advanced Students, joining past winners Slavina Goleva (Davis Lab) and Jooeun Kang (Ruderfer Lab). Jacklyn Hellwege, PhD, is a Birch Scholar K-awardee; Dan Gustavson, PhD, earned a slot for a CTSA K-award; and Alexander Bick, MD, PhD, received a Burroughs Wellcome Foundation Award. Lea Davis, PhD, also developed a course, “Anti-Racism in Human Genetics,” focused on how racism infiltrated human genetics from its early days and how we can work today to undo racism in our science. Although the course was deferred to 2022, a 2021 seminar series that included many of the course topics 58 |

NANCY COX, PHD Professor of Medicine Director, Division of Genetic Medicine

Alexander Bick, MD, PhD, is recipient of the 2020 NIH Director’s Early Independence Award

was broadly attended by students and faculty from VUMC, VU and several other institutions.

Clinical Updates

The division added a new faculty member to the Genomics and Therapeutics Clinic (GATC). Dr. Bick leads the GATC preventative genomic practice, seeing patients with strong family history of common diseases such as cardiovascular disease, patients with known mutations predisposing to common disease, and patients with direct-to-consumer genetic results such as from 23andMe who want to discuss results with a physician. Along with the pharmacogenomics practice, led by Sara Van Driest, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, GATC has grown dramatically over the past year from one patient per month to having a two-month wait list. Patients are referred to GATC from throughout the Vanderbilt Health Affiliated Network (VHAN), and from states throughout the Southeast, including Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Kentucky. Over the past year, the Hereditary Cancer Center (HCC) has made tremendous strides in improving the efficiency of their clinical activities. The program led the Department of Medicine in productivity, exceeding their budget for visits by over 13% in the last year. This is largely attributable to a complete overhaul of the genetic counselor templates, including addition of new types of telemedicine visits. This effort was overseen by Lead Genetic Counselor Katie Lang, MS, who worked closely with Access to rebuild the clinical scheduling decision tree for more accurate and efficient scheduling. HCC referral orders were also redesigned to collect more information up front in an effort to improve triaging for patients. The HCC also revised clinic workflows to reduce redundancy and inefficiency, and enable 50% of visits to be done through telemedicine moving forward. A major initiative for FY22 is to continue to grow the point-of-care genetic testing model already rolled out in some oncology clinics to improve patient access to germline genetic testing needed for clinical decision making.

Research Updates

The division research grant portfolio has grown 100-fold over the past six years, and will continue to grow as maturing faculty consider developing program projects and Centers of Excellence in a variety of areas. Among the research highlights for FY21 includes a technology partnership between Dr. Bick and VANTAGE that led to the development of a | 59

new platform for targeted sequencing of several dozen genes involved in clonal hematopoiesis for just $5 per sample. This remarkable advance is bringing substantial new business to VANTAGE (at least 20,000 samples have been sent to date) and is allowing the Bick Lab to profile clonal hematopoiesis in BioVU at scale. Moreover, for just an additional $10, it is possible to obtain common variant interrogation of the genome with low-pass whole genome sequencing. A provisional patent has been filed for the technology and the VUMC Center for Technology Transfer & Commercialization is in active discussions to license the technology to others. Dr. Bick was also awarded a Burroughs Wellcome Foundation Award and the Edward P. Evans Foundation award in FY21. Other FY21 grant activities for the division includes a National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute award to Yingchang (Kevin) Lu, MD, PhD, for research into the genetics of cardio-metabolic disease in African Americans, and a special Google award to Jennifer Below, PhD, for research in molecular signatures pre- and postCOVID infection in Mexican Americans based on repeated sample collections from a long-term study related to type 2 diabetes and cardio-metabolic disease in Mexican Americans in Brown County, Texas. Chor Yin (Maggie) Ng, PhD, heads up one of six groups funded through a special National Human Genome Research Institute initiative to develop polygenic risk scores (PRS) in diverse populations, collaborating with coPI’s at Harvard and the Broad Institute to focus on type 2 diabetes and related traits. Dr. Cox heads a second of those six funded groups, collaborating with co-PI’s at the University of North Carolina and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Institute and University of Washington to develop methods including population genetics approaches and use of multiple related phenotypes to improve polygenic risk score.

Education Updates

2020-2021 FACULTY PROFESSORS

Nancy Cox, PhD Tuya Pal, MD Vivian Siegel, PhD E. Michelle Southard-Smith, PhD Georgia Weisner, MD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS Melinda Aldrich, PhD, MPH Jennifer Below, PhD Lea Davis, PhD Ela Knapik, MD Chor Yin (Maggie) Ng, PhD Douglas Ruderfer, PhD Jeffrey Smith, MD, PhD

SR. ASSOCIATES IN MEDICINE Katie Lang, MS Kelly Taylor, MS

ASSOCIATES IN MEDICINE Meredith Gerhart, MS*

ASSISTANT PROFESSORS Ruben Barricarte, PhD Alexander Bick, MD, PhD* Eric Gamazon, PhD Jacklyn Hellwege, PhD Garrett Kaas, MD, PhD* Nikhil Khankari, PhD Yingchang (Kevin) Lu, MD, PhD Sarah Stallings, PhD Xue Zhong, PhD

Genetic Medicine trainees work on a variety of new methods development projects, and apply these methods to different human diseases and traits. Kritika Singh was awarded an AHA Fellowship to conduct her research in the shared genetic architecture between cardiovascular disease and major depression, and several of the division trainees, including Kritika Singh; Julia Sealock; Megan Shuey, PhD; Annika Faucon; ASSISTANTS IN MEDICINE Heather Herrmann, MS and Hung-Hsin Chen were involved in a variety of COVID-related research projects Lucas Richter, MS* in addition to their ongoing research projects. VU Medical Scientist Training Program Brenda Zuniga, MS* (MSTP) student Tory Martucci, mentored by Melinda Aldrich, PhD, MPH, completed her PhD in FY21, and three new MSTP students joined Genetic Medicine Faculty labs in INSTRUCTORS Patrick Evans, PhD FY21. This increased the division’s total number of trainees, with four MSTP students Daniel Gustavson, PhD Jibril Hirbo, PhD and 38 PhD students. Joohyun Kim, PhD Maria Niarchou, PhD

2020-2021 Fellows • Tyne Miller-Fleming, PhD • Megan Shuey, PhD

• Dan Zhou, PhD

Faculty Honors and Awards

• Alexander Bick, MD, PhD, was awarded the 2020 Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Medical Scientists and the 2020 NIH Director’s Early Independence Award; and was selected as the first VUMC Discovery Scholar in Health and Medicine; and received an ASCI Young Physician-Scientist Award • Tuya Pal, MD, was named Vice Chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Genetic/Familial High-Risk Assessment: Breast, Ovarian and Pancreatic Panel; incoming Editor-in-Chief of the National Cancer Institute’s Physician Daily Query Cancer Genetics Editorial Board; and a Komen Scholar • Douglas Ruderfer, PhD, received a Chancellor Faculty Fellow Award in 2021 * New faculty in FY21

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Genetic Medicine Dr. Lea Davis (left), Molecular Physiology and Biophysics graduate student Slavina Goleva (right) and colleagues used electronic health records to study the comorbidities associated with functional seizures.

Cardiovascular Medicine Dr. Javid Moslehi (left) and Hematology and Oncology Drs. Douglas Johnson (middle) and Justin Balko (right) studied an arthritis drug’s ability to treat a rare heart complication some cancer patients experience after taking immunotherapies. They published their findings in Cancer Discovery.

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GERIATRIC MEDICINE The past year has been a strong year of accomplishment for the Division of Geriatric Medicine. Dedicated to promoting healthy aging through patient care, research and medical education, we have expanded our clinical operations, established new faculty and trainee enrichment programs, and maintained a strong research portfolio. Additionally, we relocated to a new space at 2147 Belcourt that will allow the Division of Geriatric Medicine and the Center for Quality Aging to be centrally located in one space. This move will help further enhance collaborations and foster our division’s clinical, educational and research missions. Additionally, in the last year, our faculty have assumed multiple leadership roles in the institution, including Senior Vice President and Senior Associate Dean for Health Equity and Inclusive Excellence, Executive Medical Director of the Primary Care Patient Care Center, and Medical Director of the COVID-to-Home Program. In addition, we celebrated the accomplishments of Consuelo Wilkins, MD, MSCI, with her election to the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine. Our faculty have worked to make Vanderbilt an age-friendly health care system, bringing the principles of 4Ms care to both the inpatient and outpatient setting. These efforts have been led by Drs. Jim Powers and Mariu Duggan. We have also expanded our clinical operations further into the community, building partnerships with skilled care facilities throughout the Middle Tennessee area, including the Woodcrest at Blakeford. We have partnered with other specialties to improve the care of older adults. One example is the VUMC Older Adult Stem Cell Transplant and Cellular Therapy Clinic, which includes a multidisciplinary, comprehensive geriatric assessment approach to caring for older adults with hematologic malignancies. Additionally, we continued to develop new service lines to help care for our aging population. Our faculty maintained an active and robust research portfolio supported through the NIH, VA and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), among others. Our faculty’s research portfolio includes both basic and translational research, and 62 |

HARVEY MURFF, MD, MPH Associate Professor of Medicine Director, Division of Geriatric Medicine

Victor Legner, MD, MS, was named Medical Director of the Primary Care Patient Care Center

ranges from investigating how best to provide care to hospitalized older adults to determining the cellular mechanisms of neuronal injury in the brain, and decreasing health disparities among African Americans and Latinos using precision medicine. We expanded our fellowship training program to four fellows, which is a first for the division. Our faculty have developed both regional and national programs to educate providers on principles of geriatrics and continue to strengthen our collaborations across the institution. The GERIAtrics Fellows Learning Online and Together program (GERI-A-FLOAT), recognized as the innovation of the year at the 2021 Association of Directors of Geriatrics Academic Program (ADGAP) meeting, continues to grow. We look forward to a productive year ahead with continued growth in our clinical and research portfolios, as well as with our educational mission.

Clinical Updates

The Division of Geriatric Medicine’s clinical mission is to provide innovative and exceptional care for older adults in Middle Tennessee and the surrounding areas. With the graying of the U.S. population, the demand for trained geriatricians has far exceeded the supply. As such, the division seeks not only to provide outstanding patient care but to transform the entire health care system to better server older adults. To accomplish this mission, Geriatric Medicine faculty have assumed leadership positions and have worked on implementing evidence-based approaches to geriatric care in inpatient and outpatient settings. Victor Legner, MD, MS, was named the founding Executive Medical Director of the Primary Care Patient Care Center (PCC). In the last year, VUMC has continued to expand its primary care clinics. This PCC ensures that the division will continue to provide excellent preventative medicine for patients and care as they transition through their lives. In his role, Dr. Legner works across department and divisions to improve VUMC’s alignment of services and growth of services. Tara Horr, MD, was named Director of the COVID-to-Home Program, a joint program staffed by Vanderbilt Health OnCall and Vanderbilt Home Care Services. With the increase in adults hospitalized with COVID-19, this program offered a means to reduce inpatient volumes while managing COVID-19 patients safely in their own homes. Dr. Horr help lead

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a team of nurses and nurse practitioners while interacting daily with hospital medicine to help identify appropriate patients for the program. Vanderbilt was also recognized by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement as an Age-Friendly Health System Committed to Care Excellence institution with the successfully implementation of 4Ms care on the Acute Care for Elders Inpatient Unit. In addition, through work supported by the Middle Tennessee Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program (GWEP), the Institute for Healthcare Improvement 4Ms care has also been rolled out to the Vanderbilt Geriatric Clinic and the TVHS VA GeriPACT. The division’s clinical services continued to expand with an increase in community practices at Woodcrest at Blakeford. Monica Stout, MD, was appointed Medical Director of the facility, and continues to provide care at Woodcrest and Village at Vanderbilt campuses. Additionally, the division established multidisciplinary clinics. The VUMC Older Adult Stem Cell Transplant and Cellular Therapy Clinic, established by Reena Jayani, MD (Hematology and Oncology), and staffed with geriatrician Parul Goyal, MBBS, provides care specifically to older adults who are undergoing stem cell transplants. In the upcoming year, the division will continue to grow its clinical footprint, seek out new opportunities to establish multidisciplinary clinics and work to instill the principles of geriatric care across Vanderbilt.

Research Updates

The division’s research portfolio includes a wide breadth of topics relevant to older adults including active research in neuroinflammation, deprescribing, precision medicine and improving the quality of care for older hospitalized adults. Research in the division includes both basic mechanistic research as well as translational research. Faculty continue to be active in research focused on the biology of aging and how to best to care for older adults. Despite challenges faced from the COVID-19 pandemic, Geriatric Medicine faculty have been able to continue their important work and even investigate how the pandemic might impact geriatric syndromes. In the 2020 to 2021 academic year, 23 papers authored or coauthored by division faculty were published in peer reviewed publications. Dr. Duggan published a review regarding how the COVID-19 pandemic may impact the assessment of delirium in older adults. This work was published in Critical Care Clinics. Dr. Powers reported on how the Geriatric PatientAligned Care Team model help reduce 30-day readmission rates in high-risk patients at the VA hospital. His work was published in Geriatrics. Dr. Wilkins published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine her work investigating how research participants’ willingness to participate in research trials can be influenced by their perception of the researcher’s trustworthiness. The division’s grant portfolio included more than $26 million in total funding with support from the NIH’s National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the Eunice Kennedy National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities; the Health Resources and Services Administration; AHRQ; and the Veterans Health Administration New grant awards in the 2020-2021 academic year included Age-Friendly Healthcare for Hospitalized Older Adults (PI Duggan) supported by the West End Foundation and a supplement to the Center of Excellence in Precision Medicine and Population Health (PI Wilkins) supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities to investigate access to telemedicine in underserved children. An AHRQ study by Sandra Simmons, PhD, MA, related to patient safety and falls in the hospital, and a West End Foundation study by Dr. Duggan related to the Age-Friendly Healthcare System initiative, are ongoing and being conducted on the Acute Care for Elders Unit at VUMC, which combine the division’s missions in discovery and delivering outstanding patient care. The Enhancing Quality of Provider Practices for Older Adults in the Emergency Department (EQUiPPED) study, led by Dr. Powers, is a multicomponent quality improvement initiative that combines education, electronic clinical decision support

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and individual provider feedback to influence prescribing and improve medication 2020-2021 FACULTY safety for older adults. EQUiPPED has reduced inappropriate medication prescribing PROFESSORS by 50% among emergency providers at the Nashville and Murfreesboro campuses. Laura Dugan, MD James Powers, MD

The division will continue to advance discoveries in the science of aging, and will actively John Schnelle, PhD Sandra Simmons, PhD disseminate its findings through local and national conferences and publications. Along Consuelo Wilkins, MD, MSCI with conducting the science, it will continue to train future scientists in gerontologic sciences. ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS

Education Updates

Victor Legner, MD, MS Harvey Murff, MD

Education and training are a critical mission for the division. With the demand ASSISTANT PROFESSORS Hina Budhwani, MD, MPH for geriatricians far exceeding the supply, the division has expanded its geriatrics Mariu Carlo Duggan, MD, MPH fellowship and continues to grow its faculty. Educational work has extended beyond Alecia Fair, PhD VUMC with educational programs and virtual conferences reaching surrounding areas Ralf Habermann, MD Tara Horr, MD and throughout the country. Kiffany Peggs, MD* Monica Stout, MD*

In FY21, the division had four fellows complete the VUMC fellowship in geriatric IN MEDICINE medicine. Drs. Kristin Hines and Hannah Stewart will join faculty the 2021-2022 ASSISTANTS Marci Beard, RN, MSN academic year. The VUMC Fellowship in Geriatric Medicine program, under the Mattie Godfrey Brady, MSN direction of Dr. Duggan, also grew to four fellows for the first time in the program’s Elizabeth Coughlin, MSN Alison Davis, MSN history. Four new fellows were recruited for the 2021-2022 academic year. Barbara Grimm, MSN Julia McDaniel, MSN Victoria Taylor, MSN

Faculty have continued to accomplish the education mission over the past academic year. One notable highlight includes the establishment and growth of GERI-A-FLOAT, INSTRUCTORS an online program to help connect and train geriatrics fellows during the pandemic’s Jacob Parnell, MD* upheavals. Under the direction of Dr. Duggan, GERI-A-FLOAT was recognized as the Innovation of the Year at the 2021 ADGAP meeting, and over the past year has grown INSTRUCTORS IN MEDICINE Carole Bartoo, MSN to include 243 members and 67 fellows. Alice (Joy) Lowe, MSN The Middle Tennessee GWEP team, led by Drs. Powers and Simmons, has developed and supported two virtual conferences, the 2020 Middle Tennessee Geriatric Update Conference, which provided continuing education to 79 providers, and the 2021 Annual Interdisciplinary Training Conference, which trained 504 students from multiple different disciplines. Last year, the division launched the Division of Geriatric Medicine Grand Rounds series with nine Division Grand Rounds featuring VUMC and invited speakers.

2020-2021 Fellows • • • •

Kristin Hines, MD Willibroad Maimo, MD Chelsea Rick, DO Hannah Stewart, DO

Faculty Honors and Awards

• Victor Legner, MD, MS, was named founding Executive Medical Director of the Primary Care Patient Care Center • Consuelo Wilkins, MD, MSCI, was elected to the National Academy of Medicine; testified in front of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Hearing on “Examining Our COVID-19 Response: Improving Health Equity and Outcomes by Addressing Health Disparities;” and assumed the role of Senior Vice President and Senior Associate Dean for Health Equity and Inclusive Excellence

* New faculty in FY21

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HEMATOLOGY AND ONCOLOGY Our division has much to be proud of for the past year. Though the pandemic created challenges throughout, our division has met those challenges head on and viewed them as opportunities to make a bigger impact in the care of patients with hematologic and oncologic disease. We’ve had several faculty promotions, including Drs. Kim Dahlman, Dana Cardin, Kristen Ciombor, Doug Johnson and Ola Oluwole to Associate Professors; and Drs. Vandana Abramson and Nishita Reddy to Full Professors. In addition, Dr. Abramson was named the Donna S. Hall Chair in Breast Cancer. Cathy Eng, MD, was accepted into the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine program and is the new Co-chair for the GI Steering Committee for Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG). Newly recruited faculty include Drs. Rob Ramirez, Laura Beth Ramirez and Ashwin Kishtigari, as well as Drs. Rajan Sandeep and Imtiaz Malik in our network sites. We have also increased grant support, implemented new staffing models of work from home with permanent telecommunications, created a new leadership structure with disease group leaders, as well as new clinical initiatives such as the infusion and outpatient clinic at Belle Meade, an eConsult service, and virtual precision oncology second opinion clinics. The ability to quickly add administrative support during the pandemic presented challenges. We piloted a new work from home model for our administrative staff, and also utilized a third-party vendor to help quickly fill positions, onboard those positions, and provide flexibility in part-time/full-time employment and temporary hires. This has allowed us to better and more efficiently create a strong cadre of administrative assistants for the betterment of the division. We were also able to extend the work at home model to some faculty members, allowing greater flexibility for those faculty who have family responsibilities such as child and parental care. The new leadership structure involves many small units, including Hematology/ Stem Cell Transplant led by Michael Savona, MD, and Solid Tumor Oncology led by Ingrid Mayer, MD, MSCI. Jill Gilbert, MD, also serves as Vice Chair of Professional Development/Faculty Affairs. Jennifer Green, MD, was promoted to Program Director of our Hematology/Oncology Fellowship Program with several associate directors including Drs. Sanjay Mohan, Kathy Walsh and Megan Dupuis. With new faculty comes the need for new space, and we are building out new office space that will 66 |

BEN HO PARK, MD, PHD Professor of Medicine Director, Division of Hematology and Oncology

Laura Goff, MD, MSCI, was named Executive Medical Director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Patient Care Center

include private a nursing station for new mothers in our division. Finally, we’ve increased our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion by forming a diversity committee that meets regularly to discuss issues of increasing awareness, and addressing culture and microaggressions. The committee is comprised of our division’s Department of Medicine Diversity Liaisons, Drs. Christine Lovly, Sonya Reid and myself, as well as many faculty and trainees. This has resulted in two N4 story exchanges, three refresher courses by Arie Nettles, PhD, Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and Director of the Office of Inclusion and Health Equity at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, and an upcoming LBGQT seminar by Del Ray Zimmerman, Director of the Program for LGBTQ Health and the Office for Diversity Affairs at VUMC.

Clinical Updates

The division has made substantial changes and enhancements to our clinical faculty, staff and services. In addition to the aforementioned faculty promotions, we now have Epic’s genomics module in place - one of eight in the country - that has allowed us to order next-generation sequencing directly to our vendor partner, Tempus, and have the results returned in structured format directly into the Epic results tab. This has also allowed us to collect the data without any additional financial cost to the institution or patients. From a research perspective, these data will enable us to truly follow the dynamic changes that occur when cancers progress and/or are treated successfully with therapies. The division also initiated new programs for Young Adults with Cancers led by Dr. Eng, as well as neuroendocrine tumors led by Drs. Nanu Das and Rob Ramirez at our new Belle Meade clinic. We have reorganized our division into smaller disease groups, allowing opportunities for leadership without overly burdening leaders with administrative duties given the smaller unit sizes. We’ve also had several faculty appointed to national leadership positions, including Dr. Park being named Deputy Director for the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) and Chief Medical Officer for the Global Cancer Institute. | 67

Additional clinical services include the pilot of a new eConsult referral service and a virtual telemedicine precision oncology second opinion clinic. Offered to community referring clinicians, with patient consent, eConsult is an asynchronous and convenient way for referring providers to request a VUMC specialist’s clinical advice or second opinion. Development of the eConsult service was a collaboration with Department of Medicine Drs. Cecelia Theobald (General Internal Medicine and Public Health), Michelle Griffith (Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism), Drs. Cathy Eng and Nancy Davis, and VICC’s VISTA leadership. eConsults are expected to be implemented within other Medicine divisions in FY22.

Research Updates

The division continues to excel in research in both the lab and the clinic. In the 2020-2021 academic year, we continued to recruit clinical- and laboratory-based scientists, and created pathways for faster more nimble non-interventional trials by consolidating several requisite services. In NIH FY20, faculty received nearly $5.9 million in NIH-funded awards. In addition, several junior faculty received a number of prestigious grants and awards, including Sonya Reid, MD, who received the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation Diversity in Clinical Trials Career Development Program award, and Jennifer Lewis, MD, who received a LUNGevity VA Research Scholars Award. The division also had several papers in high impact journals. Most notably, Dr. Rathmell was cooresponding senior author on a Nature paper that showed how cancers utilizing glycolysis may actually come from cells surrounding the cancer.

Education Updates

Education continues to play a prominent role in the division’s mission. We have increased our Fellowship Training Program to seven slots since last year. Fellows continue to have strong mentorship, and are supported through our internal T32 and competitive internal funding sources. Under the leadership of Patrick Hu, MD, PhD, we have also increased the number of medical school graduates who matriculate into the PSTP. Among PSTP applicants, Hematology and Oncology has grown to become the most popular choice for subspecialty training with nearly half of interviewees pursuing subspecialty training in Hematology and Oncology. Of the 33 trainees enrolled in the PSTP in the 2020-2021 academic year, 10 were pursuing training in Hematology and Oncology. Dr. Park started a Director’s Lecture Series to highlight various aspects of academic medicine, and also appointed both clinical and lab post-doctoral fellows as part of his Diversity Committee to provide trainees with opportunities to increase awareness in Hematology and Oncology, and beyond. The division has started several services to support faculty and fellows in manuscript and grant writing. The division also has taken the lead in allowing undergraduates who can no longer shadow in clinics due to the pandemic by providing an opportunity for them to virtually attend tumor boards. Finally, the division last year initiated a new division grand rounds with world renowned speakers including Drs. Eric Winer, Aditya Bardia, Ross Levine, David Solit and Keith Flaherty.

2020-2021 Fellows Clinical Fellows • Nina Arhin, MD • Laura Baum, MD • Shakthi Bhaskar, MD • Eden Biltibo, MD • Chris Cann, MD • Yu-Wei Chen, MS, MD • Rodney Dorand, MD, PhD • Brian Grieb, MD, PhD • Daniel Haustrath, MD • Justin Lo, MD, PhD • Ronak Mistry, DO • Nikil Moodabagil, MD

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• • • • • • • • • •

Caroline Nebhan, MD, PhD Sara Nunnery, MD Ameet Patel, MD Vivek Patel, MD Uttam Rao, MD Marc Roth, MD Travis Spaulding, MD Shannon Stockton, MD Matthew Tucker, MD Joseph Vento, MD

Post-doctoral Fellows • Zachary Bacigalupa, PhD

• • • • • • • • • • • • •

Merrida Childress, PhD Donna Dang, PhD Zhenfang Du, PhD Derek Franklin, PhD Khem Giri, PhD, MSc Ann Hanna, PhD Henry Henderson, PhD, MS Qianni Hu, PhD, MSc Jamaal James, PhD, MS Prasad Kopparapu, PhD Yongchao Wang, PhD Ian Waters, PhD Yunkai Zhang, PhD

Faculty Honors and Awards

• Vandana Abramson, MD, was named Donna S. Hall Chair in Breast Cancer • Nancy Davis, MD, was named Senior Medical Director for VICC Cancer Care Network and Strategy • Cathy Eng, MD, was accepted into the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine program, and was elected Co-chair for the GI Steering Committee for Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group • Jill Gilbert, MD, was named Vice Chair of Professional Development in the Department of Medicin • Laura Goff, MD, MSCI, was named Executive Medical Director for the VICC Cancer Patient Care Center • Wade Iams, MD, was awarded the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Foundation Young Investigator Award • Christine Lovly, MD, PhD, was named incoming Chair of the GO2 Foundation’s Scientific Leadership Board, and was the recipient of the 2021 ECOG-ACRIN Young Investigator Award • Ben Ho Park, MD, PhD, was named Director of the Division of Hematology and Oncology • Kimryn Rathmell, MD, PhD, was named Chair of the Department of Medicine and Physician-in-Chief for Vanderbilt University Adult Hospital and Clinics, and was elected as a 2020 Fellow fo the American Association for the Advancement of Science • Michael Savona, MD, was named holder of the endowed Beverly and George Rawlings Directorship

2020-2021 FACULTY PROFESSORS

Vandana Gupta Abramson, MD Jordan Berlin, MD Cathy Eng, MD Jill Gilbert, MD Stacey Goodman, MD Adetola Kassim, MBBS Ingrid Mayer, MD, MSCI Barbara Murphy, MD Michael Neuss, MD Ben Ho Park, MD, PhD Kimryn Rathmell, MD, PhD Nishitha Reddy, MBBS Brian Rini, MD Bipin Savani, MD Michael Savona, MD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS Justin Balko, PhD Dana Cardin, MD, MSCI Kristen Ciombor, MD, MSCI Kimberly Dahlman, PhD Nancy Davis, MD Brian Engelhardt, MD Michael Gibson, MD, PhD Laura Ann Goff, MD, MSCI Patrick Hu, MD, PhD Paula Hurley, PhD Douglas Johnson, MD, MSCI Vicki Keedy, MD Brian Lehmann, PhD Christine Lovly, MD, PhD David Morgan, MD Colleen Morton, MBBCh

Olalekan Oluwole, MD, MPH Robert Ramirez, DO* Katherine Walsh, MD* Jeremy Warner, MD Sandra Zinkel, MD, PhD

ASSISTANT PROFESSORS Rajiv Agarwal, MD Jennifer Whisenant Amundson, PhD Kristen Ancell, MD Kathryn Beckermann, MD, PhD Michael Byrne, DO Michelle Chi, MD Wichai Chinratanalab, MD Sarah Croessmann, PhD Satya Das, MD Elizabeth Davis, MD Aguirre de Cubas, PhD Bhagirathbhai Dholaria, MBBS Brent Ferrell, MD Melissa Fischer, MS, PhD Lindsey Goodman, MD Jennifer Green, MD Scott Haake, MD Wade Iams, MD Reena Jayani, MD Laura Kennedy, MD, PhD* Waleed Khalaf, MD, PhD Tae Kon Kim, MD, PhD Ashwin Kishtagari, MD* Jennifer Lewis, MD Frank Mason, PhD Christine Micheel, PhD Sanjay Mohan, MD

Mary Philip, MD, PhD Laura Ramirez, MD* Haley Ramsey, PhD Sonya Reid, MD* Brent Rexer, MD, PhD Kerry Schaffer, MD Salyka Sengsayadeth, MD Shannon Serie, MD Natalie Spradlin, MD Stephen Strickland, MD Benjamin Tillman, MD Hong Yuen Wong, PhD Kenneth Wyman, MD Sally York, MD, PhD

ASSISTANTS IN MEDICINE Matthew Bumbalough, RN, MSN Whitney Chase, MSN Robert Hall, MSN Deborah Hawkins, MSN Anna Hux, MMSc Sarah Murawski, MPAS Samantha Osborne, MS Virginia Quinn, MSN Adam Stater, MSN Sherlyn Umayam, MSN Deborah Wallace, MSN Karina Wilkerson, MSN

INSTRUCTORS

Joshua Donaldson, MD, PhD Jonathan Lehman, MD, PhD * New faculty in FY21

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INFECTIOUS DISEASES This has been another challenging and rewarding year for the Division of Infectious Diseases (ID). The COVID-19 pandemic remained front and center, and our faculty, staff and trainees have devoted a tremendous amount of energy to help keep our community safe. We played key roles in COVID-19-related research, patient care, education and communication. Multiple faculty members, including Drs. Bryan Harris, Tom Talbot and Patty Wright, participated in the VUMC central command center, which orchestrated the Medical Center and health system-wide response to the pandemic. At the Nashville VA Hospital, Drs. Todd Hulgan and Milner Staub assisted in the institutional response to COVID-19, while Dr. Paul Jacob took a leading role in helping a community hospital navigate a very active pandemic at Williamson Medical Center. In addition to helping provide care for hospitalized patients, our faculty led the creation of a COVID-19 monoclonal antibody infusion clinic, spearheaded by Karen Bloch, MD, MPH, aimed at keeping high-risk patients out of the hospital. Faculty, including Drs. Cody Chastain and Sean Kelly, led efforts to create and maintain COVID-19 treatment and prevention guidelines. Many on our faculty, including Drs. Paul Jacob, Milner Staub, Aimalohi Ahonkhai, Sam Bailin, Titus Daniels, Bryan Harris, Tom Talbot, and Celestine Wanjalla, assumed leading roles in outreach through town halls and webinars to encourage vaccination. H. Keipp Talbot, MD, MPH, also played a leading role in the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices related to SARS-CoV-2 vaccine policies for the nation. And, Dr. Schaffner was a go-to expert for the media on all things pandemic-related, garnering nearly 50,000 media mentions in one year. All the while, the ID division continued to grow in all three major domains of our mission - patient care, research and education. Our clinical services have expanded to include new on-site and telehealth consultation programs serving rural hospitals, an expansion led by faculty member Dr. Daniels and our Division Administrator, Jim Bihun. Our research portfolio continued to grow as well, which included renewing major projects such as the NIH-funded Tennessee Center for AIDS Research led by Drs. David Haas and Simon Mallal, and the Caribbean, Central and South America network (CCASAnet) for HIV Epidemiology led by Dr. Catherine McGowan. We garnered new awards including a large, multi-institutional award for studying severe skin-related 70 |

DAVID ARONOFF, MD Professor of Medicine Director, Division of Infectious Diseases

Principal Investigator Dr. David Haas (L) and Bevery Woodward, MSN, RN (R), lead VUMC’s ACTIV-2 clinical trial to evaluate outpatient treatments for COVID-19

adverse consequences of medication exposure, under the leadership of Elizabeth Phillips, MD, an international expert in this area. In education, we completed the first year of our new Transplant ID Fellowship, a program directed by Gowri Satyanarayana, MD; renewed our longstanding NIH-funded training grant for the Vanderbilt Infection Pathogenesis and Epidemiology Research Training Program, led by Drs. Spyros Kalams, Wonder Drake and Tim Sterling; and renewed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program AIDS Education and Training Centers (AETC) Award, directed by Stephen Raffanti, MD, MPH. The Division of Infectious Disease enhanced its commitment to being anti-racist and supporting diversity, equity and inclusion of the department and Medical Center. Dr. Ahonkhai was named as the division’s Diversity Liaison for the Department of Medicine, and continues to lead efforts to help us improve our processes and practices such as recruitment, hiring, faculty retention and professional advancement. In the latter category, she is partnering with Anna Person, MD, in her role as Director of Education and Faculty Development. Dr. Person has also organized workshops on mass incarceration’s impact on health, implicit biases and microaggressions. The division launched an anti-racism book club that now involves participants from across the Medical Center.

Clinical Updates

FY21 continued to be a successful year for the division with our clinical faculty leading and expanding our inpatient and outpatient infectious disease services. We were pleased to welcome back Dr. Daniels who has been instrumental in leading the expansion of our ID services to include a new on-site ID consult program at the Tennova Healthcare Hospital in Clarksville, Tenn., and new telehealth ID consult services at a number of regional and rural medical centers. In addition to coordinating the state-wide distribution of the antiviral agent remdesivir early in the pandemic, an effort led by Dr. Wright, we also started a new monoclonal antibody outpatient infusion clinic for patients with COVID-19, which relied on the outstanding leadership of Dr. Bloch. Our ID service, led by Dr. Aronoff, helped create and lead daily multidisciplinary

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“huddles” to help care for COVID-19 patients in our hospital, and Ban Allos, MD, helped launch a post-COVID syndrome clinic. Our HIV clinic, the Vanderbilt Comprehensive Care Center, underwent a leadership change with the appointment of Dr. Kelly as the new Director, succeeding the founding director, Dr. Raffanti. The clinic provides care for nearly 4,000 patients living with HIV and is a Joint Commission-certified Patient-Centered Medical Home. Katie White, MD, PhD, continued to lead the Bridge Clinic, a unique partnership with the Division of General Internal Medicine and Addiction Psychiatry to provide wrap-around care to people suffering from complex infections and substance use disorders. Our Infection Prevention and Healthcare Epidemiology team, directed by Dr. Talbot, and includes Drs. Jacob, Daniels, Wright and Bryan Harris, not only led regional hospital responses to the pandemic but also advised government leaders, regional businesses and schools on COVID-19 prevention practices. As a result of their efforts, they were awarded the VUMC Elevate Team Award in February 2021. Additionally, the division led efforts to improve antimicrobial stewardship across a number of hospitals. At the main VUMC hospital, George Nelson, MD, Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (ASP), and colleagues developed new antimicrobial stewardship Pillar Goals for the institution and, working with our partners in Pharmacy, introduced nearly 5,000 clinical interventions to improve direct patient care in the use of antibiotic agents. Dr. Staub directed the ASP at the Nashville VA hospital and has taken a new role leading our outpatient stewardship efforts at VUMC. Kelly Byrge, MD, led the ASP team at Williamson Medical Center, implementing new rapid infectious disease diagnostic tools and simplified antibiotic order entry for patients in the Emergency Department.

Research Updates

Our research enterprise thrived during the past year. We submitted 160 award proposals, up from 144 in FY20, and brought in a more than $80 million in total grant funding, an increase from the approximately $54 million in FY20. Our research programs ranged from bench-based discovery to epidemiology to clinical studies and implementation science. Dr. Phillips led a new, multicenter study of serious medication-induced skin disorders, “NATIENS: A Phase III Randomized Double Blinded Study to Determine the Mechanisms and Optimal Management of Stevens-Johnson Syndrome and Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis.” The large Tennessee Center for AIDS Research, led by Dr. Mallal, was renewed this past year. Multiple members of the division play key leadership roles in this program including Drs. Haas, Kalams and John Koethe. Dr. McGowan also renewed the large, multi-national CCASAnet study. Dr. Sterling was awarded two grants for the NIH-funded Regional Prospective Observational Research in Tuberculosis (RePORT), RePORT-South Africa and RePORT International. Additionally, Dr. Wanjalla was awarded three career development grants in one year, including a K23 from the NIH National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; a Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Clinical Scientist Development Award; and a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Medical Scientists. William Wester, MD, MPH, and colleagues were awarded a Vanderbilt-Nigeria Building Research Capacity in HIV and Non-communicable Diseases award funded by the Federal Fogarty International Center. Dr. Wester and collaborators also received a five-year renewal for an ongoing U.S. government CDC/PEPFAR-funded work in Zambezia province, Mozambique, with an approved award ceiling for Year 1, commencing September 2021, of nearly $58 million. This is an excellent opportunity for our exceptional team to play a key technical leadership role nationally, and we aim to continue to leverage this large service opportunity to conduct key program evaluations related to implement science to help improve the care we provide.

Education Updates

In the 2020-2021 academic year, we renewed our NIH T32 Vanderbilt Infection Pathogenesis and Epidemiology Research (VIPER) training grant, led by Drs. Kalams, Sterling and Drake. Dr. Raffanti and colleagues also renewed the Health Resources and Services Administration-supported Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program AETC Award for the Southeast Region.

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2020-2021 Fellows Clinical Fellows • Samuel Bailin, MD • Jennifer Cihlar, DO • Jeffrey Freiberg, MD, PhD • Erin Gettler, MD • Kevin Gibas, MD • Chelsea Gorsline, MD • Kelly Shannon Lumpkins, MD • Bin Ni, MD, PhD • Jamison Norwood, MD • Rebecca Stern, MD • Karen Volpe, MD • Paul Wada, MD

Transplant ID Abaseen Afghan, MBBS Post-doctoral Fellows • John Brannon, PhD • Ozioma Chioma, PhD • Alison Eastman, PhD • Hubaida Fuseini, PhD • Paulo de Melo, PhD • Amy Palubinsky, PhD • Aung Soe Lin, PhD

Faculty Honors and Awards

• David Aronoff, MD, was named Grand Marshall of the NASCAR Real Heroes 400 for his contributions during the COVID-19 pandemic • Anna Person, MD, was named Director of Education and Faculty Development • Stephen Raffanti, MD, MPH, and colleagues renewed our HRSA-supported Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program AIDS Education and Training Centers (AETC) Award for the Southeast Region • Peter Rebeiro, PhD, was named Director of Graduate Studies for the Vanderbilt Epidemiology PhD Program, and was awarded the 2021 Division of Epidemiology Teaching Award • Celestine Wanjalla, MD, PhD, received a 2021 Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Medical Scientists and a 2021 Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Clinical Scientist Development Award • William Wester, MD, MPH, and colleagues were awarded a Vanderbilt-Nigeria Building Research Capacity in HIV and Non-communicable Diseases (V-BRCH) award funded by the Federal Fogarty International Center • Patty Wright, MD, was named VUMC’s Chief of Staff for Ambulatory Services for Davidson County

2020-2021 FACULTY

PROFESSORS

David Aronoff, MD Karen Bloch, MD, MPH Timothy Cover, MD Wonder Drake, MD David Haas, MD Allen Kaiser, MD Simon Mallal, MBBS Elizabeth Phillips, MD Stephen Raffanti, MD, MPH Timothy Sterling, MD Thomas Talbot, MD, MPH C. William Wester, MD, MPH Patty Wright, MD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS Holly Algood, PhD Ban Mishu Allos, MD Titus Daniels, MD, MPH* Suman Das, PhD Silvana Gaudieri, PhD Todd Hulgan, MD, MPH Spyros Kalams, MD John Koethe, MD, MSCI Robert Latham, MD Mark McClain, PhD

Catherine McGowan, MD Anna Person, MD April Pettit, MD, MPH Gowri Satyanarayana, MD Carlos Henrique Serezani, PhD Scott Smith, MD Helen Keipp Talbot, MD, MPH

SR. ASSOCIATES IN MEDICINE Gregory Kyle Rybczyk, RN, MSN

ASSOCIATES IN MEDICINE Rodney Adams, RN, MSN

ASSISTANT PROFESSORS Aimalohi Ahonkhai, MD, MPH Kelly Byrge, MD Jessica Castilho, MD, MPH Lindsay Celada, PhD Cody Chastain, MD Kevin Dee, MD Ryan Doster, MD Caroline Eskind, MD Christina Fiske, MD, MPH Jennifer Gaddy, PhD

Bryan Harris, MD, MPH Paul Jacob, MD, MPH Sean Kelly, MD Richard LaRue, MD John Loh, PhD Leslie Meenderink, MD, PhD George Nelson, MD Seesandra Rajagopala, PhD Peter Rebeiro, PhD Milner Staub, MD Lora Thomas, MD, MPH Yuri van der Heijden, MD, MPH Katie White, MD, PhD

ASSISTANTS IN MEDICINE Beverly Byram, MSN K. Amen Eguakun, RN, MSN Dana Hughes, MSN Robertson Nash, PhD

INSTRUCTORS

Samuel Bailin, MD* Lauren Peetluk, MPH, PhD* Celestine Wanjalla, MD, PhD * New faculty in FY21

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INTERNAL MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH The Division of General Internal Medicine and Public Health is the Department of Medicine’s largest division. With more than 300 faculty, including 238 with primary appointments in FY21, the division contributes to the clinical, educational and discovery missions of the institution. The division is operationally organized under 10 sections with strong, stable leadership across all sections. Our sections, and their respective leaders, include Ambulatory Medicine (Neeraja Peterson, MD), Hospital Medicine (Eduard Vasilevskis, MD, MPH), Medicine/Pediatrics (Bill Heerman, MD, Department of Pediatrics), Palliative Medicine (Mohana Karlekar, MD), Urgent Care (Debra McCroskey, MD), Vanderbilt Faculty/Staff Health and Wellness Programs (Mary Yarbrough, MD, MPH), Occupational Health Clinic (Lori Rolando, MD, MPH), Student Health (Katherine Hanson, MD), Executive/Concierge Medicine (Emily Kurtz, MD) and Professional Health and Wellness (Charlene Dewey, MD, VUMC Medical Education and Administration). Each section has had to adapt to a year profoundly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Frankly, each section has worked more in the last academic year than they have ever before. In the midst of the unrelenting, often unpredictable, effects of the pandemic, our faculty continued to contribute locally and nationally in advancing our tripartite mission. Many faculty took on important local leadership roles that resulted in national accolades for their important contributions. Sunil Kripalani, MD, MSc, assumed leadership of the Center for Health Services Research. Christianne Roumie, MD, MPH, a former graduate of the Master of Public Health Program, was named Director of the VUSM Master of Public Health Program. Lindsay Mayberry, MD, was named Director of the Center for Health Behavior and Health Education. Kaylin Craig, MD, was named Medical Director of our northern primary care clinics. Kelly Sponsler, MD, assumed the newly-created role of Executive Medical Director of the Hospital Medicine Clinical Service Center. Following many years of exceptional leadership by Dr. Vasilevskis, Drs. Nanette Dendy and Heather Ridinger assumed leadership of our Medicine Clerkship. Jennifer Green, MD, MPH, was named Executive Medical Director of Patient Safety for VUMC. Scott Lee, MD, PhD, received the International Health Economics Association’s Kenneth J. Arrow Award for Health Economics Research. Hilary Tindle, MD, MPH, was elected to 74 |

TOM ELASY, MD Professor of Medicine Director, General Internal Medicine and Public Health

Mohana Karlekar, MD, received the Thomas P. Graham, Jr., MD, award for dedicated service to patient-centered care

the American Society of Clinical Investigation. And despite the many challenging days that resulted from the pandemic, we were able to celebrate the promotions, with tenure, of Drs. Mayberry and Amanda Mixon. In a year marked by a pandemic that upended much of what is typical, our faculty were marked by a resiliency and steadiness in our ongoing commitment to advance knowledge, train the next generation of leaders, and provide the very best care to those who entrust their care to us. I was especially grateful for the manner in which our faculty cared for one another so that we could collectively care for those who entrust their care to us.

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Clinical Updates

In the 2020-2021 academic year, the division continued to have an expanded and substantive contribution to the clinical mission. Faculty increased and adapted their care across all sections to meet the surge of clinical demand and the particular demand brought about by the pandemic. Hospitalists tirelessly staffed COVID services, and expanded to provide additional service lines to accommodate for surging volumes. After working hard over the past three years to implement a procedural service and a Vanderbilt Familiar Faces service for complex patients, the section of hospital medicine continued to innovate as it readied a launch of a new hospital-to-home service line. Our section of Ambulatory Medicine saw over 300,000 visits and expanded to open new clinics in surrounding cities, including Hendersonville and Mt. Juliet. Ambulatory Medicine physicians quickly adapted to telehealth and opened a virtual Long COVID clinic that serves most of the state. Urgent Care opened three new walk-in clinics and continuously adapted to fluctuating surge demands brought on by COVID-19. Palliative care clinicians faced enormous challenges during the inpatient surges throughout the year and developed staffing models that triaged the enormous demand. Since its launch in fall 2018, Concierge services continued to grow and recently relocated to a new facility in Green Hills to accommodate the increased demand. Finally, Occupational Health and Student Health continued to meet the extraordinary needs of our workforce and our Vanderbilt University students as they provided state-of-art care in line with the evolving pandemic. The resilience and professionalism exhibited by our clinicians in this challenging year did not go unnoticed.

Research Updates

Our diverse research portfolio continues to be heavily driven by NIH-supported grants, including three new R01 grants in FY21. In NIH FY20, Internal Medicine faculty were awarded nearly $5.7 million in NIH awards. William Martinez, MD, MSc, having completed his K23, secured his second R01. Andrew Wooldridge, MD, launched a program in Arts and Humanities to explore the therapeutic effects of music and art on patient-reported outcomes. Dr. Kripalani, in conjunction with colleagues in emergency medicine, secured another R01 focused on implementation science and decision support to improve emergency department disposition. Michele Izmaylov, MD, continued an extraordinary run of publications in the field of narrative medicine. While focused on NIH funding, we continue to diversify our portfolio of funding with new merit and career awards from the VA, industrysponsored funding and philanthropy.

Education Updates

Last year, we continued to attract exceptional applicants to our AHRQ- and NIH-funded T32 and K12 under the leadership of Dr. Roumie. Established in 1999, our VA Quality Scholars program, led by Robert Dittus, MD, MPH, continues to be a remarkable training ground for many of our fellows who go on to hold important leadership roles both within our institution and around the country. Our training programs in Med-Peds, led by Dr. Moutsios, and Palliative Medicine, led by Sumathi Misra, MD, MPH, continued to attract exceptional applicants from around the country and, importantly, sends those trainees to serve in various leadership roles in academia, government and industry. Our residency training program in Medicine-Pediatrics (Med-Peds), lea by Sandi Moutsios, continued to attract applicants from around the country. This program provides post-graduate residency training to create exceptional generalists to care of adults and children with a wide range of health care needs. From this generalist training, a resident may choose to practice as an outpatient generalist (primary care) or inpatient generalist (med-peds hospitalist), or they may choose to sub-specialize such as in cardiology, infectious diseases, or pulmonary medicine to care for patients across the age spectrum with a focused spectrum of problems providing specific expertise. Our program provides a wide breadth of clinical experience with both children and adults so that our residents graduate prepared to handle most any clinical scenario. In FY21 the Vanderbilt Med-Peds Program consisted of 24 residents and 15 med-peds faculty members who are double-boarded in both internal medicine and pediatrics. The med-peds faculty are all highly invested in the residents’ success and they all function as mentors and coaches for the residents’ professional development. The residents rotate 24 months in pediatrics and 24 months in internal medicine over a 48-month residency. The inpatient clinical opportunities occur within Vanderbilt University Hospital, Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt and the Nashville VA Hospital. The Palliative Medicine Fellowship program exists to produce leaders who provide the best possible care to their patients, and make important contributions to the emerging field of palliative care in health care and to the communities in which 76 |

it serves. Since its inception in 2008, our interdisciplinary, mutli-campus program has trained more than 30 fellows who hold successful careers in academic medicine, community leadership and hospice-based practices. The program is affiliated with the Vanderbilt Center for Quality Aging and the VA Tennessee Valley Geriatrics Research Education and Clinical Center. Our faculty continued to have a myriad of different leadership roles across VUSM and within our Internal Medicine Residency program. Also this year, as a result of their contributions to the educational mission at Vanderbilt, Dr. Ridinger was elected to VUMC’s Academy for Excellence in Education, and Benjamin Womack, MD, was selected as a Master Clinical Teacher.

2020-2021 Residents and Fellows Medicine-Pediatrics Residents • Toaa Abuelenen, MD • Stacy Blank, MD • Emily Camp, MD • Michael Chambers, MD • Preetam Cholli, MD • Ahmad Dbouk, MD • Catherine Deffendall, MD • Benjamin Frush, MD • Marina Girgis, MD • Trent Goodin, MD • Edward Hardison, MD • Nina Hill, MD • Rachel Klausner, MD • Jonathan Kooiman, MD

• • • • • • • • •

Samuel Lazaroff, MD Joseph Moo-Young, MD JJ Parker, MD Laura Price, MD Justin Smith, MD Alicia Stallings, MD Thomas Strobel, MD Steven Z. Watson, MD Ashley Woo, MD

Palliative Care Fellows • Kimberly Chesteen, MD • Holly Huth, MD • Neeti Kothare, DO

Faculty Honors and Awards

• Mohana Karlekar, MD, received the Thomas P. Graham, Jr., MD, award for dedicated service to patient-centered care • Sunil Kripalani, MD, was appointed Director of the Vanderbilt Center for Health Services Research • Scott Lee, MD, PhD, received the International Health Economics Association’s Kenneth J. Arrow Award for health economics research • Lindsay Mayberry, MD, was named Director of the Center for Health Behavior and Health Education • Heather Ridinger, MD, was elected to VUMC’s Academy for Excellence in Education • Christianne Roumie, MD, MPH, was named Director of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Master of Public Health Program • Hilary Tindle, MD, MPH, was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation

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2020-2021 FACULTY PROFESSORS

Donald Brady, MD Robert Dittus, MD, MPH Tom Elasy, MD, MPH Sunil Kripalani, MD, MSc Robert Miller, MD Russell Rothman, MD, MPP Christianne Roumie, MD, MPH William Spickard III, MD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS Joseph Fanning, PhD Katherine Hanson, MD Emily Kurtz, MD Lindsay Mayberry, PhD Sumathi Misra, MD, MPH Amanda Salanitro Mixon, MD, MPH Karin Moolman, MD Neeraja Peterson, MD Tony Ross, MD Kelly Sponsler, MD Craig Sussman, MD Cecelia Theobald, MD, MPH Hilary Tindle, MD, MPH Eduard Vasilevskis, MD, MPH Thomas Whitfield, MD Elizabeth Yakes, MD Mary Yarbrough, MD, MPH

ASSISTANT PROFESSORS Matthew Abbate, MD Allison Lott Adams, MD Rebecca Anderson, MD Federica Angel, MD Rachel Apple, MD Katelyn Atwater, MD Francis Balucan, MD Emily Barker, MD Corey Batson, MD Jennifer Poole Blazier, MD John Boone, MD Eve Bowers, MD Emily Brown, MD* Ryan Buckley, MD Jessica Burke, MD Laura Burkhart, MD Ian Campbell, MD Rosette Chakkalakal, MD Mark Chambers, MD Chayla Chasten, MD Michael Chin, MD, MPH Neesha Choma, MD, MPH Amos Clark, MD Christopher Coe, MD* Billy Copeland, MD Daniel Cottrell, MD Kaylin Smith Craig, MD Jan DeLozier, MD Nanette Dendy, MD* Irina Didier, MD Nidhi Dole, MD Maie El-Sourady, MD Shelley Ellis, MD, MPH Sabrina Finney, MD Hannah Fish-Trotter, MD Kevin Flemmons, MD Jacob Franco, MD James Gainer, MD Morli Gandhi, DO*

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Muteeb Ghaffar, MD Fiona Gispen, MD* Joan Gorden, MD Parul Mani Goyal, MD Sharon Green, MD Jennifer Green, MD, MPH Zinah Hadidi, MD Kevin Hageman, DO Norman Hardman, MD Philip Harrelson, MD Jacob Hathaway, MD McKinley Heflin, MD* Lawrence Heller, MD Paula Herrmann, MD Heather Limper Himelhoch, PhD Tiffany Hines, MD Timothy Hinton, MD Richard Hock, MD Lynn Holliday, MD Merranda Holmes, MD Angela Horton, MD, MPH Gwnedolyn Howard, MD Michelle Izmaylov, MD* Emmanuel Johnson, MD* Jill Jones, MD Mohana Karlekar, MD Ashley Karpinos, MD, MPH Sapna Kripalani, MD, MSc Nathan Krishnan, MD Derek Kruse, MD Robin LaPre, MD Russell Ledford, MD Scott Lee, MD, PhD Martha Leonard, MD Michelle Lewis, MD Helen Lin, MD Catherine Linn, MD Kevin Liu, MD Peter Liu, MD* Cooper Llloyd, MD, MPH* James MacDonald, MD Bhavish Manwani, MD Sara Martin, MD William Martinez, MD, MSc Michael McCann, MD* Debra McCroskey, MD Robert McKnight, MD* Catherine Miller, MD* Matthew Miller, MD Richa Misra, MD Kevin Mitchell, PharmD, MD James Mosley, MD Sandra Moutsios, MD Lyndsay Nelson, PhD Michael Neuss, MD, PhD* Ana Nobis, MD, MPH Alexander Nourse, DO* Harley Odom, MD Amanda Olson, MD Daniel Ontenient, MD Derek Pae, MD Scott Parker, MD John Peach, MD Matthew Peachey, MD Lorina Poe, MD, MPH Kathleen Pollard, MD* Matthew Potter, MD Martha Presley, MD Jan Price, MD Angela Qian, MD

William Rasberry, MD Elizabeth Rice, MD Heather Ridinger, MD Lori Rolando, MD, MPH Ben Rowan, MD William Sanders, MD Bethany Scanlan, MD Allison Schwall, MD John Scott, MD Sarah See, MD Maureen Seitz, MD Claude Shackelford, MD Martha Shepherd, DO Michael Smith, MD, PhD Kelly Sopko, MD Ruth Stewart, MD Catherine Stober, MD William Sullivan, MD Krista Suojanen, MD Emily Tarvin, MD Shayne Taylor, MD Stacey Tillman, MD Carmen Tuchman, MD Eleanor Weaver, MD Chase Webber, DO Jule West, MD Bobby White, MD Jonna Whitman, MD Jessica Willis, MD Rachel Wolf, MF Benjamin Womack, MD Kathleene Wooldridge, MD, MPH Andrew Wooldridge, MD Arwa Zakaria, DO Teresa Zoffuto, MD, MPH

ASSISTANTS IN MEDICINE

Deborah Baker, MPAS Katie Bernas, MMSc Matthew Bowers, MSN Mary Alyson Carter, RN, MSN Jane Case, DNP Christy Claiborne, MS Caroline Cone, MSN Lindsey Dalton, MSN Melissa Doyle, MSN Sandra Ermini, MSN Sarah Garrand, MSN Merritt Hambrick, MS Ashley Hoadley, MSN Candace Humes, RN, MSN Susan Johnson, MSN Linda Johnson, MSN Fatmata Kamara, MSN Kristin Kight, MSN Ruth Knab, MSN Margaret Moore Laxton, MPH Melissa Lehmann, MPAS Candice Lewis, MSN Jeanne Madden, MS Robert Kenneth McKenzie, MS Gordon Melton, MSN Emily Nardone, MSN Jill Nelson, MSN Laurie Omohundro, DNP, MSN Taina Ovchinnikov, RN, MSN Christopher Parker, MS Amanda Phelps, MHS

Mohammad Rassekhi, MSN Samuel Robbins, DNP Rone Russell, MS Morgan Stine, MPAS William Swiggart, MS Retha Thomas, MSN Jason Tillman, MSN Megan Vickers, MS Bethany Wagner, MSN Elisa Walker, MSN Molly Tashiro Williams, MSN Gamini Wiyathunge, MSN

INSTRUCTORS

Adam Behroozian, MD, MPH Vandana Bhide, MD* Sadiqa Boura, MD Raigan Burkall-Lewis, MD* Nitara Carswell, MD Jonazary Cervone, DO Jon Cumberledge, MD Joel Fine, MD Aleksandra Frye, MD Blake Funke, MD* Zhanna Grinchuk, MD Laura Heller, MD* Brook Helmer, MD* Mirza Khan, MD Sophia Kostelanetz, MD, MPH Concepcion Martinez, MD* Brian McMurray, MD* Jennifer Montague, MD* Cecily Montgomery-Imani, MD Ilaben Patel, MD Samuel Perry, MD Rachael Petry, MD* Hayden Shafer, MD* Katelyn Smelser, MD* Kristine Tatosyan-Jones, MD Pierce Trumbo, MD*

* New faculty in FY21

Infectious Diseases Dr. Carlos Henrique Serezani (right), and colleagues Amondrea Blackman, Nathan Klopfenstein and Júlia Miranda Ribeiro Bazzano studied the early events of the inflammatory response to infection. Their findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition Drs. Sarah Short (middle), Christopher Williams (right) and colleagues studied a biomarker for assessing disease severity and cancer risk in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. They published their findings in Gastroenterology.

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NEPHROLOGY AND HYPERTENSION The 2020-2021 academic year was one of landmark growth and milestone achievements for the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension’s clinical programs and practicechanging research. We performed 278 kidney transplants in 2020, a record year for our program. We are on track for over 300 kidney and kidney-pancreas transplants in 2021 with outstanding patient outcomes. Despite a year complicated with the pandemic, our general nephrology clinical programs have expanded substantially. Our Home Dialysis Unit census reached a record 125 patients, one of the largest amongst any medical center in the country. Our clinical programs evolved to provide the most possible patient-centered approach. One of most rewarding accomplishments this year was VUMC’s leadership to be one of the first in the country to recognize and act on the need to eliminate race correction in kidney function estimations in clinical practice. In recognition of these accomplishments, our division was given the 2021 VUMC Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for its efforts in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Our basic and clinical research programs are enriched by Vanderbilt O’Brien Kidney Center (VOKC), Vanderbilt Center for Kidney Disease, Vanderbilt Center for Matrix Biology, Vanderbilt Transplant Center and Vanderbilt Nephrology Clinical Trials Center. Our Kidney Disease Research Alliance with Bayer, which was initiated in 2017, continues to be active and is making important progress toward developing new therapies for kidney diseases. As few examples of our research accomplishments, our NIH Human BioMolecular Atlas Program (HuBMAP)-funded Biomolecular Multimodal Imaging Center at Vanderbilt University contributed kidney-related data to the NIH’s newly released wealth of 3D molecular imaging and genetic data mapping. The Kidney Project team, co-led by William Fissell, MD, is making gains toward developing a functional bioreactor to meet their goal of miniaturizing a bioartificial kidney for implantation. Not surprisingly, our esteemed faculty is recognized by several awards, including election of Raymond Harris, MD, Ann and Roscoe R. Robinson Professor of Nephrology and Director of Vanderbilt Center for Kidney Disease, as a 2020 fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was also the winner of the VUMC Ernest W. Goodpasture Award for Outstanding Contributions to Research. Kerri 80 |

T. ALP IKIZLER, MD Professor of Medicine Director, Nephrology and Hypertension

Drs. Osama El Shamy (L) and Dr. Megha Salani (R) lead VUMC’s at-home dialysis program

Cavanaugh, MD, MHS, was selected as the recipient of the 2021 Distinguished Mentor Award from the American Society of Nephrology. Julia Lewis, MD, was reappointed as chair of the Food and Drug Administration - Cardiorenal Advisory Committee for another term, an unprecedented accomplishment for a nephrologist and the first woman to hold that position. Dr. Cavanaugh was recognized as the mentor of the year by American Society of Nephrology, which reflects the high quality mentorship available in our division. Our fellowship program continued to thrive with nine new clinical fellows – seven in general nephrology and two in transplant nephrology – each year, representing one of the largest and best programs in the country. In the past academic year, our program started specialized procedural services with dedicated faculty for Point-of-Care Ultrasound, renal biopsies, and dialysis access placement and a home dialysis rotation, all highly appreciated by current and incoming trainees.

Clinical Updates

Outpatient clinic volumes continued to increase despite the pandemic to over 20,000 total visits, a 6% increase compared to previous year. Of those, 1,500 were new patients, which is a 40% increase compared to the previous year. As new initiatives, the division started two new outreach clinics in the surrounding Williamson and Rutherford counties. In terms of nephrology inpatient services, the division performed over 5,900 inpatient dialysis procedures and 1,600 apheresis procedures. The number of CRRT machines increased to 19 to support the expanding ICU and surgical services, one of the largest in our region. Vanderbilt Outpatient Dialysis Enterprise continued to provide comprehensive clinical care for our end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients on maintenance dialysis. Employees conducted 43,716 total dialysis treatments delivered to approximately 400 unique patients. Approximately 20,169 of those treatments were delivered via home dialysis. The division has long been at the leading edge of home dialysis therapy, with approximately 40% of our patients with ESRD pursuing home therapies against a national average of 12%. With the renewed national focus on increasing the number of patients treated using home modalities, the division has proven a model for patient choice, and quickly adapted to | 81

meet the unprecedented challenges of delivering continuous care to a population that could not delay treatment – even if COVID-positive. The division developed a system to accommodate 59 patients with COVID or COVID exposure as outpatients, delivering more than 200 treatments over 14 months to patients in isolation. Kidney transplantation is one of the highlights of the division. A record 278 kidney and pancreas transplants were performed in 2020, one of the highest in the nation. In total, more than 6,000 kidney transplants have been performed since 1962 when VUMC performed its first kidney transplant – then the first organ transplant in Nashville and one of the first in the South. Post-transplant care was provided to approximately 2,500 kidney transplant recipients from across the Southeastern United States and the Midwest. The outreach clinic in Madison, Ala., has improved access to transplantation for patients living in the South. The transplant program is a leader in the innovative practice of transplanting kidneys from donors infected with hepatitis C into uninfected recipients. Additionally, the division has a robust program for dual heart-kidney, liver-kidney and pancreas-kidney transplants, and actively performs ABO- and HLA-incompatible transplantation, and participates in national kidney exchange programs. The division has a large clinical presence at the VA hospital where it covers two full-time general medicine teams as well as the nephrology service, which includes a nephrology clinic, an outpatient dialysis center and a renal transplant service. In addition, the VA nephrology division is the most funded nephrology research division in the country. It has nine independently funded investigators, and is a major participant in the flagship VA-funded Million Veteran Program. This allows the division’s VA faculty to play a large part in a national research program designed to learn how genes, lifestyle and military exposures affect health and illness.

Research Updates

During the last academic year, the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension was awarded multiple federal, pharmaceutical and foundation grants. The total number of grants in the division included 18 R01 or equivalent grants, two U01s, two program grants, 10 Merit awards from the VHA, two career awards, seven foundation grants and 25 individual contracts with pharmaceutical companies. The research activities within the division are coordinated and supported by VOKC which aims to advance research opportunities for kidney-related research and promote effective interactions between basic scientists and clinical researchers to advance effective prevention and treatment of acute and chronic kidney disease and their complications. The center supports more than 50 internal and external investigators, funds two yearly pilot and feasibility grants and participates in the NIDDK Summer Research Training and AspirnautTM programs. During the last academic year, the center initiated new programs such as research voucher program for micro-grants and coordination of NIDDK O’Brien center symposiums. The Vanderbilt-Bayer Alliance, one of the few academia-industry collaborative initiatives in the country for advancing treatments for kidney disease is now in its fourth year. Working closely with scientists at Bayer, researchers in the division are helping to identify new targets and develop therapeutics for kidney diseases. Nephrology Clinical Trials Center (NCTC), continuously funded since the NIH-sponsored Modification of Diet in Renal Disease study, supports 20 principal investigators across nephrology, kidney transplant medicine, kidney transplant surgery, urology and endocrinology via a variety of grants and contracts. The NCTC also serves as a clinical coordinating center for trials examining progression of kidney disease. Given the breadth and depth of the high-quality research performed by faculty and trainees, more than 150 manuscripts were published in the last academic year. These were highlighted internally and externally, including a series of publications by Drs. Billy Hudson and Sergey Budko in the Journal of Cell Biology highlighting the role of collagen IV in glomerular basement membrane dysfunction and potential therapeutic strategies; a publication by Drs. Raymond Harris and Ming-Zhi Zhang in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology reporting on a novel regulatory factor being protective against kidney fibrosis following severe ischemic renal injury; and series of publications by Drs. Julia Lewis and Jamie Dwyer in Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine on the effectiveness of intensive blood pressure control on kidney and heart outcomes.

Education Updates

One of the largest and most respected programs in the country, the Nephrology Clinical Fellowship provides comprehensive training that includes home dialysis, POCUS, renal transplantation and Apheresis. From the most recent graduating class, two joined academic practices, two are completing a research fellowship, and three joined top private practice groups. Availability of all inpatient dialytic procedures including peritoneal dialysis, hemodialysis, continuous renal replacement therapy, plasmapheresis and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, and a wide-ranging clinical and research expertise in faculty across the spectrum of molecules to populations, including but not limited to acute kidney injury, chronic 82 |

kidney disease, end-stage kidney disease, transplantation and pediatrics, attracts the best applicants to our program. A diverse group of 14 fellows – seven men and seven women – will join the program for the 2021-2022 academic year. In addition to the clinical training program, the division supports a robust Nephrology Research Fellowship training program (Catalyst) that provides additional mentoring, training and oversight for 20 post-doctoral fellows performing nephrology research. Post-doctoral fellows are funded by Nephrology T32 and those in either VUMC or the unversity. Last year, this diverse group included 10 men and 10 women with 15 PhDs, one MD and four MD, PhDs.

2020-2021 Fellows Clinical Fellows • Farah Abifaraj, MD • Laura Binari, MD • Bethany Birkelo, DO • Chidi Egwim, MD • Alissar El Chediak, MD • Christin Giordano, MD • Tarun Kapoor, MD • JoBeth McCoy, DO • Javier Jaramillo Morales, MD • Max Nutt, MD • Andrew Terker, MD, PhD • Peter Thorne, MD

• Abebech Waktola, MD • Jasmine Washington, MD • Matthew Wysocki, DO Post-doctoral Fellows • Kevin Abney, PhD • Elvis Akwo, MD, PhD • Venkatswara Amara, PhD • Ryan Bauer, PhD • Julie Bejoy, PhD • Mark Castleberry, PhD • Selene Colon, PhD • Lale Ertuglu, MD

• • • • • • • • • • •

Kakali Ghoshal, PhD Gema Gonzalez-Lliberos, PhD Nan Guan, MD, PhD Deepika Nambiar, PhD Youske Osaki, MD, PhD Melis Sahinoz, MD Sho Sugahara, MD, PhD Kensei Taguchi, MD, PhD Jiaqi Tang, PhD Min Yang, MD Dan Wang, PhD

Faculty Honors and Awards

• Juan P. Arroyo, MD, PhD, received the Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and received the VUMC “Newman” Harrison Scholar award • Raymond Harris, MD, was elected as a 2020 Fellow fo the American Association for the Advancement of Science • William Fissell, MD, who leads The Kidney Project, was awarded a KidneyX Prize for the development of an implantable home dialysis system • Eman Gohar, PhD, recevied the NIDDK K99-R00 award

2020-2021 FACULTY PROFESSORS

Richard Breyer, PhD Mark de Caestecker, MBBS, PhD Jamie Dwyer, MD Thomas Golper, MD Volker Haase, MD Raymond Hakim, MD, PhD Raymond Harris, MD J. Harold Helderman, MD Billy Hudson, PhD T. Alp Ikizler, MD Julia Breyer Lewis, MD John Nadeau, MD Ambra Pozzi, PhD Heidi Schaefer, MD Mohammed Sika, PhD Paul Voziyan, PhD Roy Zent, MD, PhD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS Kerri Cavanaugh, MD, MHS Jianchun Chen, MD Sergei Chetyrkin, PhD Beatrice Concepcion, MD William Fissell, MD Leslie Gewin, MD Adriana Hung, MD, MPH Anthony Langone, MD Vadim Pedchenko, PhD

Edward Siew, MD Takamune Takahashi, MD, PhD Roberto Vanacore, PhD Matthew Wilson, MD, PhD Ming-Zhi Zhang, MD, MSc

ASSISTANT PROFESSORS Khaled Abdel-Kader, MD Gautam Bhave, MD, PhD Kelly Birdwell, MD, MSCI Corina Borza, PhD Craig Brooks, PhD Kyle Brown, PhD Sergey Budko, PhD Nada Bulus, MD Anna Burgner, MD Manuel Chiusa, PhD* Osama El Shamy, MD* Bertha Elias, PhD Nicholas Ferrell, PhD Aaron Fidler, PhD Rachel Fissell, MD Eman Gohar, PhD* Edward Gould, MD Alla Ivanova, PhD Ming Jiang, MD, PhD* Hanako Kobayashi, PhD Wentian Luo, MD, PhD Natalie McCall, MD

Devika Nair, MD, MSCI Tetyana Pedchenko, PhD Elena Pokidysheva, PhD Cassianne Robinson-Cohen, PhD Megha Salani, MD Neil Sanghani, MD Bonnie Sarrell, MD* Saed Shawar, MBBS Ebele Umeukeje, MD, MPH Yinqiu Wang, PhD Lauren Woodard, PhD Kyoji Yamaguchi, PhD

ASSISTANTS IN MEDICINE Adrienne Clagett, MSN Toddra Liddell, MSN Mary Rogers Sorey, MSN Tanaya (Niki) Summers, MSN Zhijian Wang, RN, MSN

INSTRUCTORS

Juan Pablo Arroyo Ornelas, MD, PhD* Shirong Cao, MD, PhD Guneet Kochar, DO* Richard Oneil, PhD Kensuke Sasaki, MD, PhD* Ruth Ann Veach, BS * New faculty in FY21

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RHEUMATOLOGY AND IMMUNOLOGY The Division of Rheumatology and Immunology continued its remarkable growth trajectory in FY21 with three new faculty members, and recruited five additional faculty. In addition to the growth of our faculty, we successful increased the number of fellows, welcoming the first class of three fellows to our program. The division has three very diverse clinical sites used for training, including VUMC, the Nashville VA and Nashville General hospitals. In addition, we have very active offsite practices in Williamson County and in the Hillsboro Medical Group. We are very excited to extend our clinical reach by opening a new practice site in a multispecialty VUMC facility in Hendersonville, Tenn., in the the upcoming year. The site includes an infusion center to increase our ability to conveniently serve our patients. We have continued to expand our disease-focused clinical activities in vasculitis, myositis and systemic sclerosis while maintaining our osteoporosis and metabolic bone clinics. Our program in connective tissue disease-associated interstitial lung disease, which included our programs in myositis and systemic sclerosis is now co-localized with our colleagues in the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the new Vanderbilt Lung Institute at One Hundred Oaks to allow for multidisciplinary care of complex patients. During the COVID-19 pandemic, our division was able to quickly pivot to telemedicine and maintain the ability to provide care to our large number of patients with systemic autoimmune diseases at high risk for infection. We also worked closely with our colleagues to advise on the use of immunomodulatory strategies proposed for use in COVID patients. We are very fortunate to have several of our junior research faculty funded through career development awards from the NIH and the VA. Our research faculty continues a strong record of success in maintaining individual funding. We successfully renewed our T32 training grant in rheumatology, and have partnered with the Vanderbilt Center for Immunology to obtain a second T32. Overall, the Division of Rheumatology and Immunology continues to have a very strong, positive trajectory for growth in all our core missions of education, research and clinical care.

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LESLIE CROFFORD, MD Professor of Medicine Director, Rheumatology and Immunology

Clinical Updates

Drs. Deanna Edwards (L) and Jin Chen (R) publish findings, suggesting breast cancer cells “steal” nutrients from immune celles, in Journal of Clinical Investigation

In FY21, the division’s clinical care program on connective tissue disease-associated interstitial lung disease, relocated to OHO location to be co-localized with VLI. This rheumatology program focuses on patients with myositis, systemic sclerosis and mixed connective tissue disease. Drs. Crofford, Erin Wilfong and April Barnado serve patients at this site. Tracy Frech, MD, an internationally recognized systemic sclerosis expert, was recruited and will join this practice in FY22. She will also see patients in the Pulmonary Hypertension Clinic at The Vanderbilt Clinic. Jason Springer, MD, is co-heading the Vanderbilt Vasculitis Clinic with Kevin Byram, MD. Dr. Byram was also tapped to co-lead VUMC’S Undiagnosed Diseases Network program. The division will add a new general rheumatology clinic with infusion capability at the VUMC Hendersonville clinic in the 2021-2022 academic year.

Research Updates

FY21 saw the successful funding on competing renewal of the T32 Rheumatology Training grant with James Thomas, MD, as principal investigator. Also, a new T32 grant was successfully funded to support clinical and translational immunology. This research program is co-led by Drs. Amy Major and Jeff Rathmell (Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology). In other research programs, Drs. Crofford, Wilfong, Amy Major and Rachel Bonami joined the transinstitutional Human Immunology Discovery Initiative (HIDI), to develop a pipeline of techniques for immunophenotyping of patients with autoimmune diseases. The clinically annotated biospecimen collections are central to the HIDI project. Additionally, Dr. Crofford began working with the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research Drug Repurposing initiative as principal investigator on two projects to study novel indications for approved drugs.

Education Updates

First- and second-year fellows were successful in submitting abstracts to the American College of Rheumatology Annual Scientific Meeting. Jennifer Young-Glazer, MD, MSCI, successfully graduated from the MSCI program in her last year of fellowship. She will join the division faculty in FY22. Tyler Reese, MD, will join the division as faculty in FY23 following completion of his Master’s of Education in the Health Professions program at Johns Hopkins University. In the last academic year, the division was able to expand its fellowship program, and will gain an additional first-year fellow position for the 2021-2022 academic year, which will bring the first-year class to three fellows.

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In other educational areas, the division continues to be active in training first-year residents in joint anatomy and injection/aspiration in the Center for Experiential 2020-2021 FACULTY Learning and Assessment. Division fellows and faculty also continue to provide PROFESSORS education and training in rheumatology to students at Meharry Medical College and Thomas Aune, PhD Jin Chen, MD, PhD residents at Nashville General Hospital. Leslie Crofford, MD

2020-2021 Fellows

Clinical Fellows • Ben Boone, MD • Meghan Hansen, MD • Tyler Reese, MD • Sarah Tarplin, MD • Jennifer Young-Glazer, MD, MSCI Post-doctoral Fellows • Alberto Cisneros, PhD • Dudley McNitt, Ph • Xiaoyang Wang, PhD

Faculty Honors and Awards

John Sergent, MD James Thomas, MD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS Cecilia Chung, MD, MPH Susan Kroop, MD Amy Major, PhD Kristine Phillips, MD, PhD Jason Springer, MD*

ASSISTANT PROFESSORS Narender Annapureddy, MD, MSCI April Barnado, MD, MSCI Daniel Birchmore, MD Rachel Bonami, PhD Dana Brantley-Sieders, PhD Kevin Byram, MD Sallaya Chinratanalab, MD James Gore, MD Sarah Homann, MD, MPH Joseph Huston, MD Hillary Kaplan, MD Kevin Myers, MD Michelle Ormseth, MD, MSCI Eli Steigelfest, MD S. Bobo Tanner, MD

• Daniel Birchmore, MD, was awarded the Mark Wolcott Award for Clinical Excellence from the Department of Veterans Affairs, a national award and the highest recognition for one VA clinician annually • James Gore, MD, leads a free clinic at St. Sampson Medical Clinic providing biologic therapies to patients with rheumatic diseases and no other way to ASSISTANTS IN MEDICINE receive these transformative medications Julie Barnes, MSN INSTRUCTORS

Glenn Douglas, MD Deanna Edwards, PhD Sujana Reddy, MD Shan Wang, PhD Erin Wilfong, MD, PhD*

* New faculty in FY21

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GIVING Each year, the Department of Medicine is the recipient of generous gifts and donations from current and former faculty, trainees and staff, as well as members of the community. In FY21, the department received nearly $4.5 million in gifts and more than $6 million in total endowments. These contributions - both large and small - support our goals of providing world-class patient care, performing cuttingedge research and training tomorrow’s health care leaders. We appreciate your support.

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