On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak a pandemic. Just four years since the start of the pandemic, we are faced with an unexpected byproduct of COVID-19 infection – Long COVID.

  

Dr. Bastarache is a physician-scientist with a mechanistic and translational research program in acute and chronic lung diseases including acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and bronchiectasis. She also has an interest in non-pulmonary organ dysfunction during sepsis and studies delirium and acute kidney injury in experimental models. Her diverse research approach uses a combination of cell, mouse and human models of lung injury and repair to define the fundamental cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate organ injury including ARDS, delirium and acute kidney injury as well large clinical and genetic datasets to generate insights into individual variability in risk and outcomes from ARDS. She also has an interest in leveraging the EMR and novel phenotyping methods to identify and study subjects with underlying genetic causes of chronic lung diseases such as bronchiectasis with the goal of developing tools to help clinicians achieve a timely and accurate diagnosis. Brandon Baer, PhD, is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is responsible for designing and executing research initiatives to assess novel therapeutics for respiratory disease. Over his career, he has initiated and led strategic approaches with both academic and biotech partners to enhance the efficacy as well as delivery of intrapulmonary therapeutics (mainly for the treatment of inflammation and infection). Passionate about improving the current treatment paradigms for respiratory disease, he thrives in collaborative environments that empower diverse teams of inter-disciplinary scientists to tackle scientific challenges.

Histones with an unconventional DNA-binding mode in vitro are major chromatin constituents in the bacterium Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus Mohebi A, et al. in Nature Microbiology, October 9, 2023Mass Spectrometry Imaging and Histology for the Analysis of Budding Intestinal Organoids. Sekera E, et al.

Dopamine transients follow a striatal gradient of reward time horizons. Mohebi A, et al. in Nature Neuroscience, February 6, 2024 Bacteriophage infection and killing of intracellular Mycobacterium abscessus. Schmalstig A, et al.

Jennifer Shuman, Ph.D. is a postdoctoral fellow in the Tim Cover lab in the department of Medicine and department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology. Jennifer received her B.S. in Genetics and in Microbiology from Clemson University in May 2018, where she worked with Dr. Ingram-Smith on Entamoeba histolytica metabolism. She graduated from the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program at Vanderbilt in the Spring of 2024 and is currently a postdoc in Dr. Tim Cover's lab. Her research interests include how Helicobacter pylori adapts to mixed infections and different environmental conditions. Outside of the lab, Jennifer likes to read, eat, and explore Nashville with her family.

Synthetic Glycans Reveal Determinants of Antibody Functional Efficacy against a Fungal Pathogen. Crawford C, et al. in ACS Infectious Diseases, October 19, 2023 Emapalumab for the treatment of refractory cytokine release syndrome in pediatric patients. Schuelke M, et al.

Learn a bit about the VI4 Postdoctoral Association and doing a postdoc at Vanderbilt from Kara Eichelberger, PhD and Valeria Reyes Ruiz, PhD....Click to watch!

Probiotic-guided CAR-T cells for solid tumor targeting. Vincent R, et al. in Science, October 12, 2023 A Candida auris–specific adhesin, Scf1, governs surface association, colonization, and virulence. Santana D, et al.

Dr. Mariana Byndloss and graduate student Nic Shealy make friendship bracelets and chat about their microbiome research....Click to watch!