Vanderbilt Anesthesiololgy

The Department of Anesthesiology at Vanderbilt: September 1, 2001 - July 15, 2004

Jeffrey R. Balser, M.D., Ph.D., already Professor of Anesthesiology in the department, became Chairman after Dr. Beattie’s departure. Dr. Balser now serves as Vice-Chancellor for Research as well as the Dean of the School of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. In 2010, Dr. Balser was elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of
the National Academies. Comprised of top health
experts and life scientists, the IOM is a national adviser to improve
health and promote health-related research.

Dr. Balser also is a member of the American Society for Clinical
Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, the AAMC
Advisory Panel on Research, and has chaired the NIH Director’s
Pioneer Award Committee. His studies in the journals Nature, Proceedings of the National Academies of Science and Nature Structural and Molecular Biology have established new paradigms for how the chambers of the heart contract and relax, and are yielding new targets for arrhythmia control.

Dr. Balser serves on the Council of the Association of University Anesthesiologists and is deeply involved in policy issues for physician scientists in anesthesiology and across biomedical science.

Dr. Balser serves as principal investigator for the General Clinical Research Center grant. Dr. Balser’s research focus involves genetics and biophysics of voltage-gated ion channels and is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association. Dr. Balser’s laboratory is also highly collaborative with basic and translational research programs throughout the institution, housed in the Divisions of Clinical Pharmacology, Genetic Medicine, Cardiology, and the Center for Structural Biology.