We are focused on social determinants of successful transition to adult care for youth living with HIV.  We conduct IRB approved longitudinal research on youth living with HIV in our multidisciplinary Adolescent and Young Adult Health Care Transition Clinic.   

Dr. DeBaun is an internationally recognized physician-scientist whose advocacy and research have resulted in fundamental advances in medical care of children and adults with sickle cell disease (SCD) and children with Beckwith Wiedemann Syndrome, a cancer predisposition syndrome. He is Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine, Vice Chair of Clinical and Translational Research in the Department of Pediatrics and holds the JC Peterson Endowed Chair at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. After receiving his degrees from Stanford, he completed his pediatric residency, served as chief resident, and completed his pediatric hematology-oncology fellowship at St. Louis Children's Hospital, Washington University School of Medicine. He then completed a four-year United States Public Health Service Epidemiology fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). During the fellowship he obtained an MPH degree from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (2003). Dr. DeBaun returned to St. Louis and spent 14 years at Washington University School of Medicine where he was promoted to Professor of Pediatrics, Biostatistics, and Neurology, and was the inaugural Ferring Family Chair in Pediatrics. He also received the following Washington University Medical School Awards: Humanism in Medicine Award (2002), Clinical Teacher of the Year Award (2008), and Distinguished Faculty Award (2009). In 2010, Dr. DeBaun was recruited to Vanderbilt University School of Medicine where he founded the Vanderbilt-Meharry Center of Excellence in Sickle Cell Disease. The Center is one of the first in the country to establish a medical home care model for children and adults with SCD in a community health center. For over two decades, Dr. DeBaun has received continuous funding from the National Institute of Health (NIH) and Robert Wood Johnson, Doris Duke and Burroughs Wellcome foundations. Dr. DeBaun was the primary physician author of the Sickle Cell Treatment Act, signed by President Bush into law on Oct. 22, 2004 Title VII, creating regional networks for enhanced services for with SCD. His research efforts in SCD have focused on the clinical epidemiology of acute and chronic lung disease, sequelae of silent and overt strokes, including leading eight investigator-initiated controlled stroke trials in North America, Europe, and Africa. Additionally, in Ghana, he was the leader of multi-disciplinary team decreasing the death rate of pregnant women with SCD by approximately 90% and continues to work with the team at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. His research has expanded to include the clinical history and optimal therapy for recurrent ischemic priapism in men with sickle cell disease living in Nigeria and malnutrition in older children with sickle cell disease living in Nigeria. Dr. DeBaun is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (2006), Association of American Physicians (2008) and National Academy of Medicine (2009). He has received the Ernest Beutler Prize and Lecture in Clinical Science from the American Society of Hematology (2014) and two international mentor awards for his work in Ghana, Nigeria and U.S.: the Maureen Andrews Mentor Award from the Society of Pediatric Research (2017) and the American Society of Hematology Mentor Award (2019).

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Dr. Davis' research is aimed at developing and implementing interventions to improve health in vulnerable populations of children. Her current research projects explore the relationships between depression, medication adherence, and health outcomes in youth with systemic lupus erythematosus and juvenile dermatomyositis.

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Dr. Cutrer is interested in understanding how students learn in the workplace and how to help them learn more effectively. He was the Vanderbilt PI for their participation in the AMA’s Accelerating Change in Medical Education (ACE) Consortium, and was the leader of the Vanderbilt team participating in the AAMC pilot project Core Entrustable Professional Activities for Entering Residency (Core EPAs). He currently serves as the Chair of the Association of American Medical Colleges Group on Educational Affairs (GEA). He has published and presented widely on these topics.

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Dr. Crowe is Director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center, the Ann Scott Carell Professor of Pediatrics, Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, and University Distinguished Professor of Chemistry. His laboratory studies the human immune response to infection for a wide variety of major human pathogens, including many emerging infections. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, National Academy of Inventors, and other major professional organizations. His work has been recognized by a number of international awards, including the The Harrington Prize for Innovation in Medicine, the Golden Goose Award, the Judson Daland Prize of the American Philosophical Society, the Oswald Avery Award of the IDSA, and the Korsmeyer Award of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. This research group uses a very broad array of techniques including molecular and cellular biology, state-of-the-art imaging and flow cytometry, bioinformatics, and bioengineering approaches to attack scientific problems at the forefront of immunity research. The group has been recognized widely as a leader in antibody sciences, for instance as the Best Academic Research Team, 11th Annual Vaccine Industry Excellence Awards, World Vaccine Congress, recipient of the 2019 Merck Future Insight Prize, and large-scale research grants and contracts from NIH and DoD, including the DARPA Pandemic Prevention Program (P3). His team developed the COVID-19 antibodies on which Evusheld (tixagevimab + cilgavimab) is based.

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Dr. Creech is currently leading studies to determine the optimal duration of therapy for children with pneumonia; to define the immune response to influenza vaccination using a systems vaccinology approach; to define the immune response to S. aureus infections in children and adults; and to compare whole-cell pertussis and acellular pertussis vaccines in children, using ribosome profiling as a transcriptomics tool.

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