Our division’s research is conducted throughout the Vanderbilt campus, as the Department of Pediatrics has 104,115 square feet of lab space across multiple locations around campus. The Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) controls more than 124,000 square feet of research and administration space and influences more than 186,000 square feet of research space. Research is facilitated by eight well-developed research programs within VICC and its shared resources, as well as a federally-qualified Comprehensive Hemophilia Treatment Center and the Meharry-Vanderbilt Sickle Cell Center of Excellence.
Please see below to learn more about our investigators and their research efforts.
Jennifer Andrews, MD
As a board-certified Pediatric Hematologist/Oncologist and Blood Banking/Transfusion Medicine physician, Dr. Andrews is an expert in Pediatric Transfusion Medicine and is regularly invited to the National Institute of Health to set the research agenda in the field of Pediatric Transfusion Medicine. Her research interests include: blood utilization in children, use of technology to optimize blood transfusion, medical education and clinical trials especially of new blood products or blood product alternatives such as fibrinogen concentrate.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Andrews’ research.
Daniel Benedetti, MD, MA
Dr. Benedetti’s research explores ethical dilemmas that occur in the care of children with cancer, with a current emphasis on understanding conflicts between oncologists and parents over treatment decisions. He is on the steering committee of the Children's Oncology Group (COG) Renal Tumor Committee, where he works to develop and conduct clinical trials for children with cancers of the kidney.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Benedetti’s research.
Scott Borinstein, MD, PhD
Dr. Borinstein is a nationally recognized expert in bone and soft tissue sarcomas. He conducts translational research in pediatric sarcomas and is involved in the development and implementation of clinical trials to improve cancer treatment, advance supportive care, and minimize late effects.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Borinstein’s research.
Michael DeBaun, MD, MPH
Research in Dr. DeBaun’s laboratory is focused preventing and treating complications in children and adults with sickle cell disease both in the US and Africa.
Click here to learn more about Dr. DeBaun’s research.
Adam Esbenshade, MD, MSCI
Dr. Esbenshade focuses on cancer control, CNS malignancy, and survivorship. Areas of active investigation include prevention and treatment of obesity and metabolic syndrome in survivors, infectious disease complications during therapy, risk prediction modeling, and clinical trials that focus on targeted therapy for CNS tumors. He is active in the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) and is the Chair of the Young Investigators Committee and the Vice Chair of the Cancer Control and Supportive Care Committee.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Esbenshade’s research.
Debra Friedman, MD
Dr. Friedman conducts clinical and population sciences research across the cancer care continuum. Her research includes observational and interventional studies in cancer prevention, cancer care delivery and health outcomes. She is a nationally recognized for her clinical work in Hodgkin lymphoma and retinoblastoma.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Friedman’s research.
Richard Ho, MD
Dr. Ho is a clinician scientist with research interests and expertise focused in the areas of pediatric clinical pharmacology and cancer pharmacology. He is a nationally recognized physician investigator who has led translational research projects concentrated on drug transporters and chemotherapy disposition, and pharmacogenetics of cancer therapy in pediatric oncology.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Ho’s research.
Saara Kaviany, DO
Dr. Kaviany's clinical and research interests are immuno-oncology, with goals of investigating the intersection of immunology with pediatric cancer and stem cell transplantation. Clinically, she also see patients in the Comprehensive Hematology, Immunology, and Infectious Disease Program (CHIIP). The CHIIP clinic offers care for complex immune disorders and allows patients to receive expertise from multiple sub-specialists, including immunology, hematology, infectious disease, and bone marrow transplant, during one clinic visit.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Kaviany's research.
Carrie Kitko, MD
Dr. Kitko is the Medical Director of the Pediatric Stem Cell Transplant Program. Her research focus is on improving outcomes from post-transplant complications, particularly graft-versus-host disease. She is able to offer her patients the opportunity to participate in several clinical trials designed to help prevent and treat these complications.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Kitko’s research.
Heather McDaniel, MD, MSCI
Dr. McDaniel is a pediatric hematologist who focuses on the care of patients with non-malignant hematologic disorders. She serves as the director of the pediatric thrombosis and inpatient hematology consult services. Her research focus is on treatment for hematologic disorders as well as prevention of venous thromboembolism in pediatric patients.
Click here to learn more about Dr. McDaniel’s research.
Christine Moore Smith, MD
Dr. Smith’s focus is hematologic malignancies, with a special interest in lymphoma including Hodgkin lymphoma, non-Hodgkin lymphomas, and post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease. She is actively involved in quality improvement (QI) and patient safety with multiple ongoing efforts at the divisional and institutional level. In addition to her work locally, Dr. Smith was part of the founding leadership of the ASPHO Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Special Interest Group, a member of the Children's Oncology Group, and a panel member for the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Pediatric Hodgkin's Guidelines Committee.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Smith’s research.
Devang Pastakia, MD
Dr. Pastakia’s research focuses on optimizing treatment for pediatric patients with brain and spinal cord tumors. He is involved in national consortiums that collaborate together to find novel treatments for CNS tumors. Additionally, as co-leader of the medical education academic community in the pediatric residency program, he works with pediatric residents to academically evaluate changes to the residency curriculum.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Pastakia’s research.
Brianna N. Smith, MD, MS
Brianna Smith, MD is a physician-scientist with a clinical interest in the care of children and adolescents with myeloid malignancies, myelodysplastic syndromes, and bone marrow failure disorders. Her laboratory focus is the study of experimental therapeutics and cell death pathways in myeloid disease within the Savona Laboratory.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Smith's research.
Jason R. Schwartz, MD, PhD
Dr. Schwartz's research and clinical interests focus on pediatric inherited bone marrow failure syndromes and their associated predisposition to develop myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). He strives to utilize personalized genomic data to guide therapy decisions and potentially make those decisions sooner, resulting in better overall outcomes. In the laboratory, his focus is to better understand the hematopoietic consequences of pathogenic germline SAMD9 and SAMD9L variants given their strong association with inherited monosomy 7 and MDS.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Schwartz's research.
Emmanuel Volanakis, MD
Dr. Emmanuel Volanakis is interested in the clinical care of children and young adults with sickle cell disease and other hemoglobinopathies. He has served as the site investigator for industry sponsored and investigator initiated multicenter clinical trials.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Volanakis’ research.
Allison Wheeler, MD, MSCI
Allison Wheeler is the director of research for benign hematology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She studies hemostatic and thrombotic disorders in collaboration with industry sponsors and individual investigators. Her personal research is focused on bleeding disorders and symptoms in women.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Wheeler’s research.
Sara Zarnegar-Lumley, MD, MS, BA
Sara Zarnegar-Lumley, MD, specializes in the care of children and adolescents with leukemia, lymphoma, and histiocytic disorders. She has a particular interest in the molecular background of these diseases. She is actively involved in designing and conducting clinical trials of targeted therapies for pediatric leukemia.
Click here to learn more about Dr. Zarnegar-Lumley’s research.