James West

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Dr. West is a Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt University. He uses a combination of cell culture techniques, genetically engineered mouse models, and patient data to study primarily pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Although many of his projects have focused on lung pathology, he also has several lines of research focused on preserving right heart function, the actual cause of mortality in PAH patients. He is currently studying the role of heritable mutations in regulation of vasculogenesis and cell-cell junctions, metabolism, and interaction between pulmonary vascular cells and circulating inflammatory cells, as well as examining mechanisms of right heart adaptation and failure. His work has successfully translated to several promising clinical trials. Dr. West received a PhD in Physics from Georgia Tech in 1996, with post-docs in developmental biology and pulmonary hypertension at University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. He started his own NIH-funded lab there in 2003, before moving to Vanderbilt in 2007.

Erica Carrier

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Dr. Carrier is an assistant professor in the division of Allergy, Pulmonary, and Critical Care, part of the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). Her research is focused on the function of the thromboxane-prostanoid receptor in cardiac stress and remodeling, particularly in the right ventricular response to pulmonary arterial hypertension. Dr. Carrier obtained her PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 2005, studying the microglial response to cannabinoids in the lab of Dr. Cecilia Hillard. There, she demonstrated that enhanced adenosine signaling is partially responsible for some effects of cannabidiol, a compound that isn’t active at cannabinoid receptors, due to the ability of cannabidiol to competitively inhibit the equilibrative nucleoside transporter and subsequently decrease adenosine uptake. She expanded her clinical pharmacology background in a post-doctoral fellowship with Dr. John Oates at Vanderbilt. Dr. Carrier joined the Pulmonary Hypertension Research Team at VUMC in late 2012, where she has worked in collaboration with Dr. West and others to investigate the mechanisms of right ventricular failure in pulmonary hypertension.