Dr. Acra is a Professor of Pediatrics and Chief of the D. Brent Polk Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He directs a busy clinical program with over 20,000 annual visits and more than 4,000 endoscopies. He has had a long academic career focused on clinical service, education and clinical research in the field of pediatric gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition. His major clinical and research focus is in the area of upper gastrointestinal pathology, including dyspeptic, functional and diarrheal disorders and nutrition. With a background in chemical engineering, he has had a lifelong interest in intestinal transport phenomena and energy expenditure. Early in his career, he helped describe the function of several intestinal electrolyte and nutrient transporters in animal models and in humans.

His recent clinical nutrition research is focused on measuring energy expenditure in chronic disease states. Specifically, his research relates to measurement of energy metabolism in children using whole-room indirect calorimeters (metabolic chambers). This system is coupled with movement sensors to provide a similar-to-free-living environment where a study subject or patient's energy expenditure, substrate oxidation, physical activity and body composition are accurately measured on a minute-by-minute basis. Through this approach, his lab is investigating the physiological regulation of energy metabolism in children with inflammatory bowel disease and other chronic disease states, as well as improving the technologies for measuring body composition and physical activity.

With his background in engineering, he also has experience in developing and modeling new technologies. As Director of the Pediatric Aero-digestive Program, he is conducting studies on dyspeptic disorders, including piloting a novel non-invasive technology for measuring esophageal inflammation via measurement of mucosal electric resistance (plenary presentation at NASPGHAN, 2016) and co-developing a non-invasive tool to measure functional nausea based on gastric electromagnetic wave conduction abnormalities – now supported by recent R01 NIH funding.

As a pediatric gastroenterologist, Dr. Acra recognized that despite recent advances in our understanding of some congenital diarrheal disorders, undiagnosed Congenital Diarrheas and Enteropathies (CODE) still represent a considerable health problem for those affected, and sought to use his clinical and clinical research experience and the experience of his co-investigators at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (Dr. Goldenring, leading epithelial biologist with expertise in transport and epithelial turnover; Dr. Correa, pediatric pathologist with extensive experience in intestinal pathology) to better understand these conditions. Supported by their preliminary work, they have hypothesized that identification of specific cellular abnormalities in children with CODEs, whole genome sequencing of effected neonates and their parents, and studying the disease by recapitulating it in defined biologic systems will lead to insights into the causes of CODE cases, and potentially lead to individualized treatments. This is demonstrated in the group’s work on understanding and reversing the transport-trafficking defect associated with the pathology of DGAT1 deficiency. This innovative approach, in collaboration with other major centers with common interests and complementary expertise, led to the creation of the PediCODE consortium, now funded by the NIH, with the goal of enhancing our ability to study the pathophysiology of CODE and improve diagnose, manage, and treat CODE.

Dr. Acra is also part of a multidisciplinary program continuously supported by the NIH for the past 25 years that investigates bio-psychosocial processes associated with pediatric functional abdominal pain. This group has phenotyped a cohort of over 800 pediatric patients with functional abdominal pain followed from childhood into adolescence and young adulthood. The results of these studies have led to published predictors of persistence of functional pain from childhood into adulthood, allowing earlier targeted care for those with greatest predilection for chronicity.

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Dr. Jill Simmons is a Professor of Pediatrics in the Ian M Burr Division of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She graduated from the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, and she completed her pediatric residency and fellowship in Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes at the University of Colorado Children's Hospital and Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes. She joined the faculty at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2006. She is the founder and director of the Vanderbilt Program for Pediatric Metabolic Bone Disorders, the founder and chair of the Hazinski Society for Faculty Development, and the Director for Faculty Mentorship Programs in the Department of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University. She is a member of the scientific advisory board for Soft Bones as well as the Rare Bone Disease Alliance.

Dr. Simmons’ clinical and research interests include type 1 diabetes as well as pediatric metabolic bone diseases such as hypophosphatasia, osteogenesis imperfecta, osteoporosis, and rickets. She has been a successful local principal investigator for multiple groundbreaking clinical trials in metabolic bone disease, including asfotase alpha in infants with severe hypophosphatasia, romozosumab and setrusumab in pediatric patients with osteogenesis imperfecta, and burosumab in pediatric patients with hypophosphatemic rickets. She is also an active investigator in several international longitudinal observational registries and multiple ongoing clinical trials.

Dr. Simmons has published more than 70 manuscripts in peer reviewed journals, including but not limited to The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, The Journal of the American Medical Association, The Journal of Pediatrics, and Diabetes Care. She serves as a regular reviewer for journals in her field and regularly presents her research at national and international meetings.

In addition to her research, she is an active clinician and educator. She spends the majority of her time with patients as well as educating pediatric residents and endocrinology fellows to better care for children with endocrine diseases. She has won the highest patient experience award at Vanderbilt University Medical Center every year since its inception in 2017.

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Dr. Shoemaker’s research focus is hypothalamic obesity, including genetic disorders and hypothalamic injury. By identifying the precise pathophysiology underlying different forms of syndromic obesity, Dr. Shoemaker is working to develop targeted weight loss treatments. Disorders studied include Prader-Willi syndrome, pseudohypoparathyroidism, MC4R pathway disorders, and adolescent type 2 diabetes.

Dr. Shoemaker has received funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Endocrine Fellow Foundation and the Doris Duke Foundation. She is a member of the EuroPHP Network Consensus Group on Pseudohypoparathyroidism. Her research has been published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, International Journal of Obesity, Obesity, Nature Reviews Endocrinology and Hormone Research in Pediatrics. In 2012, she was named a Vanderbilt Scholar in Diabetes. In 2016, she received the Endocrine Society Early Investigator award.

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Use of technology to promote behavior change in adolescents with type 1 diabetes.