Personnel
Dr. Cole is the Park J. White, M.D., Professor of Pediatrics, Professor of Cell Biology and Physiology, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Children's Health, Vice Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics, Director of the Division of Newborn Medicine, and Chief Medical Officer of St. Louis Children's Hospital
Dr. Hamvas is James P. Keating, M.D. Professor of Pediatrics, Director of Clinical Affairs for Newborn Medicine, and Medical Director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at St. Louis Children's Hospital
Laboratory Staff
Daniel Wegner, Lab Manager – Dan is involved in association of genotypes in surfactant related genes and pathways to newborn RDS using high throughput genotyping and Sanger / Next Generation sequencing technologies.
Hillary Heins, Senior Research Technician – Hillary is working to understand the correlation of surfactant protein B bands on western blots with clinical phenotypes and genotypes in surfactant related genes in children with RDS.
Ping Yang, Senior Research Technician – Ping is working to create cell systems to understand cell response and UPR activation in the presence of cell stress due to mutations in the SFTPC gene.
Leslie Walther, Clinical Nurse Coordinator – Leslie is primarily responsible for patient recruitment and sample aquisition, and also collects and coordinates clinical data for all patients in our studies. She also assures that our lab is HIPAA and HRPO compliance.
Jennifer Wambach, M.D. Instructor, Newborn Medicine – Jen is investigating the contribution of variants in SFTPC to RDS, and the interactions of SFPTC and genes in the unfolded protein response (UPR) pathway.
Tiffany Kanion, M.D., Newborn Medicine Fellow – Tiffany is investigating the contribution of variants in the PCYT1B gene and its contribution to RDS and relation to surfactant phospholipid and protein turnover.
Michelle Boykin, M.D., Newborn Medicine Fellow – Michelle is investigating the role of epidermal growth factor/receptor genotypes and metabolism and the intestinal microbiome in the pathogenesis of necrotising enterocolitis (NEC).
Sarah Robison, Lab Technician – Sarah is involved in pilot project using Next Generation sequencing technology.
Himabindu Reddy, Lab Technician – Bindu is working with Michelle in sequencing candidate genes related to the NEC project.
Kelcey DePass, Lab Technician – Kelcey is involved in sequencing candidate genes in referral patients.
Meagan Kane , Patient Recruiter - Meg is involved in patient recruitment, and sample and clinical data collection for all of our studies.
Kirsten Danzo, Summer - involved in sequencing candidate genes in referral patients.
Justin Pieper, Summer - involved in seqeuncing candidate genes in referral patients.