Leila Kheirandish-Gozal, MD, MSc
Professor; Children’s Miracle Network Professorship in Child Health; Director, Child Health Research Institute
Bio
Leila Kheirandish-Gozal, MD, MSc, is a tenured and endowed professor of pediatrics and Director of the Child Health Research Institute (CHRI) at the University of Missouri, Columbia. She is one of the most celebrated pediatric sleep medicine experts in the world, ranking No. 4 among specialists in 2018.
Dr. Kheirandish-Gozal’s research focus is both on mechanisms and biomarkers which may mediate the strong correlation between obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and vascular dysfunction.
David Gozal, MD, MBA, PhD
Professor; Marie M. and Harry L. Smith Endowed Chair; Chairman, Department of Child Health; Pediatrician-in-Chief, Children’s Hospital
Bio
David Gozal, MD, MBA, PhD, is an international expert in the field of sleep medicine. He is known as a pioneer in the study of childhood sleep problems and the relationships between sleep disorders and neurobehavioral, cardiovascular and metabolic disease. His research has been funded by multiple National Institutes of Health grants and focuses on translational approaches to pediatric sleep disorders, such as childhood obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and sudden infant death syndrome.
Esma Yolcu, PhD
Professor
Bio
Dr. Yolcu has significant interest in using hematopoietic stem cells as a powerful scheme for immunomodulation with main focus on the treatment of autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes, and allograft rejection as well as bone marrow failure syndrome and hematological malignancies. Imperative to these efforts is a platform technology, ProtEx™, co-pioneered by Dr. Yolcu that allows for; i) the generation of novel immune ligands having robust immune-stimulatory or suppressive functions, and ii) the transient display of these ligands, individually or in combination, on biological and non-biological surfaces for localized immunomodulation. The platform technology has been patent-protected worldwide.
Abdelnaby Khalyfa, PhD
Research Associate Professor
Bio
Abdelnaby Khalyfa, MS, PhD, is a renowned sleep researcher who studies the metabolic and vascular consequences of sleep disorders. He has conducted groundbreaking research relating to obstructive sleep apnea in children, linking the disorder to genetic disruptions that lead to inflammation, organ dysfunction and metabolic dysfunction. Today, his ongoing research seeks to identify genetic markers in children and adults with sleep disorders that could predict the onset of long-term medical conditions such as obesity and hypertension.
Rene Cortese, PhD
Research Assistant Professor
Bio
Rene Cortese, PhD, studies epigenetics of complex diseases to detect and understand how complex diseases develop, progress, are inherited, and can be treated. His current research focuses on the functional study of epigenetic phenomena in genome regulation and the epigenetic mechanisms involved in children's and women's health.
Adrienne Ohler, PhD
Research Associate Professor
Bio
Adrienne Ohler, PhD, provides statistical support as a partner in research to the Department of Child Health and School of Medicine. Whether it be collaboration on grants, manuscripts, education, or data analysis, she is prepared to assist you in your research activities. Services provided include grant proposal development, experimental design, sample size selection, data management, randomized clinical trials, and statistical analysis that includes linear models, nonparametric statistics, logistic regression, longitudinal studies, multivariate analysis, survival analysis, and more.
Kristin Sohl, MD
Associate Professor
Bio
Dr. Sohl is a pediatrician with extensive experience in medical diagnosis, evaluation and treatment of children with a concern of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders. She is an expert in quality and process improvement for comprehensive autism diagnostic and longitudinal services.
She is the site principal investigator for the Autism Intervention Research for Physical Health/Autism Treatment Network (AIRP/ATN) and the founder of ECHO Autism, an innovative framework to increase community capacity to care for children with autism and other developmental/behavioral concerns. Her team has established partnerships with health care entities in more than 15 states and five countries. Her research focus is system change to improve health care and services for individuals with autism through understanding their medical conditions.
Jorge Gomez-Gutierrez, PhD
Research Associate Professor
Bio
The Gomez-Gutierrez Laboratory is primarily interested in microbial-based cancer therapy. We focus on investigating how virus- and bacteria-based therapies can be used to stop tumorigenesis and induce oncolysis and/or immune responses in cancers when conventional therapy is inadequate. Two microorganisms are being studied: the first is a conditionally replicating adenovirus (CRAd) also known as oncolytic adenovirus (OAd); the second is the lactic acid bacteria Lactococcus lactis (L. lactis), which is generally regarded as a safe (GRAS) organism and is used in dairy industry to make cheese and yogurt. The former study was funded with an NIH/NCI exploratory/developmental grant R21CA210202 and currently supported by Burroughs Wellcome Fund.
