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VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER

Cooperative Human Tissue Network, Western Division at Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Staff


 

 

 

 

Dr. Mary K. Washington, Principal Investigator
Dr. Washington's research focuses on morphology of gastrointestinal and hepatic diseases. She provides expertise in interpretation of histopathologic changes in a variety of animal models of gastrointestinal diseases to basic scientists at Vanderbilt. She also serves as director for several research tissue banks, as well as CHTN Western Division. Her research focuses on diagnostic aspects of gastrointestinal and hepatic pathology; specific areas of interest include Barrett's esophagus, colorectal neoplasia, inflammatory bowel disease, and gastrointestinal pathology of primary immunodeficiency. She also has an interest in morphology of mouse models of intestinal neoplasia and inflammatory bowel disease.
Research specialty: Histopathology of gastrointestinal and hepatic diseases and mouse models of GI cancer.


 
 
 
 
 

 
Kerry R. Wiles, Coordinator
Kerry Wiles is the central coordinator for the CHTN Western Division. Ms. Wiles received her B.S. degree from Pittsburgh State University (Kansas) and has completed 20 hours towards a M.S. degree with an emphasis on genetics-molecular biology and microbiology. She has over 15 years of "wet bench" research experience in genetic mapping, association studies, tissue culture, MALDI-TOF /SNP genotyping and analysis, sequencing, microsatellite library creation and robotics. Ms. Wiles started her scientific career at the University of Iowa working on genetic mapping of chromosome X and 4, association studies of BFLS and FSH.   Ms. Wiles also studied the  role of Beta defensins in normal human lung, diseased lung (Cystic Fibrosis) and skin as well as rats and mice.
Ms. Wiles continued her scientific career at the National Institutes of Health under the direction of Dr. Francis Collins, National Human Genome Research Institute-NHGRI (FUSION) and was involved in NIDDM research using a large Finnish cohort. Ms. Wiles was recruited to CHTN Western Division in August 2002 by Dr. Washington as project manager/coordinator.
Procurement Staff
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Erik R. Brooks, Pathology Technician II
Erik Brooks is the lead procurement technician and a pathology technician II in the CHTN Western Procurement Lab at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He received his B.S. in biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology (BCMB) from the University of Tennessee in December 2003. Before joining CHTN, Erik worked at Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center for five years in the emergency department. His current position focuses on the collection and procurement of remnant human tissue, with an emphasis on malignancies and GI tissues. Erik hopes to apply his experience with CHTN to pursue a future career as a physician assistant.
 
Shipping and Processing Staff

 

 

 


 

Anne Campbell, RA I
Anne Campbell is a research assistant in CHTN Western Division's Fluid Processing department. In May 2012, Anne received her Bachelors of Science in biology from the University of Mary Washington. In the future, she hopes to continue her education by attending graduate school for immunology and cancer biology.

 

 

 


 

Aunshka Collins, RA I
Aunshka Collins is a part time research assistant in CHTN Western Division's Fluid Processing department. She received her Bachelor of Science in psychology with a double minor in biology and health cum laude form Lipscomb University in May 2012. I hope to apply my experience with CHTN and continue my education at Vanderbilt University Medical School to become a physician-scientist, specializing in neurosurgery and psychiatry.

Research Analyst/Consenting Personnel

 
 

 

 

 

Jessica Rix, RA I
Jessica Rix is a research assistant in CHTN Western Division's Consenting Department.  Jessica informs patients of the research and receives consent for fluids and tissue samples.  She received her Bachelor of Science in biology with a minor in chemistry in 2011 from Belmont University.  Jessica hopes to continue her education in the future and become a physicians assistant. 


 

 

 

 

Cari Jennings, RA I
Cari Jennings is a research assistant with CHTN Western Division's Consenting Department. Cari received her Bachelor of Science with honors in biology, with a concentration in human physiology and a minor in chemistry in Mat 2012 from MTSU. She hopes to apply her experience at CHTN to a future career as a physician serving in medically underserved areas.

Laboratory Staff

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Sarah Jane-Krista Feyas, RA I
Sarah is a member of CHTN Western at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Sarah received her Bachelor of Science in biology with a double minor in psychology and chemistry cum laude from Lipscomb University in 2010. She hopes to attend medical school one day to become a doctor specializing in treatment of infectious diseases.

 

 

 


 

Brittney Fain, Laboratory Technician
Brittney is a member of CHTN Western at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is currently studying early childhood education and speech therapy at TSU. She hopes to one day start her own program for special needs children here in Tennessee.

 Bioinformatics


 

 

 

 

Ying Jin, Health Systems Software Engineer
With a B.E. degree from the Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Ying continued her education in Middle Tennessee State University and obtain her M.S. degree in computer science in 2002. Ying has worked at the Vanderbilt Genetic Medicine Division for four years focusing on the development of promoter analysis and gene annotation tools. During this time, she also designed and implemented a web portal application for the National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Disease. After Ying left genetic medicine in 2006, she started with CHTN Western Division. Ying participated in the CHTN data migration project and successfully converted and imported high volumes of data from the FoxPro database to the Oracle database for all six CHTN divisions. She is responsible for system support, maintenance, and data analysis of the CHTN donor and investigator systems. She has also been working on the new donor system by redesigning some existing components and creating some new required modules. Her work related interests include topics of data analysis, system design and implementation, particularly in J2EE frameworks.


 

 

 


Matthew L. Clement, Health Systems Software Engineer III
Mr. Clement received his B.A. in computer science from Harding University in 2000.  He began his career working for ALLTEL Information Services developing client/server applications for financial institutions using VB6 and C++.  These applications included mortgage lending software, teller programs, call center applications, back office applications, CRM strategy software and telephony integration software.  In 2003 Mr. Clement started working for Acxiom.  At Acxiom he designed and implemented web based front ends using Java ServerFaces(JSF), Java Servlets, JSP, Java Script and C# .NET.  He also designed and implemented a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) based on Soap Web Services in the JBoss J2EE container.  He was also part of an architecture team that developed an application framework, in JSF, for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions.  
In 2006 Mr. Clement joined Vanderbilt University where he created Spring Based Web Applications for the University Registrar's Office and the Department of Alumni Relations and reimplemented core business functionality in a Service Oriented Architecture.  Currently, Mr. Clement serves as the Project Manager and Architect for the CHTN Western Division IT department.  He is responsible for leading a team developing a new Donor application, as well as implementing and maintaining all supporting applications.  
His team is using the following technologies: JavaServer Faces (JSF), RichFaces, JQuery, Maven2, Spring and Hibernate.  Objective C is being used to provide limited functionality on iOS devices.  He is also responsible for working with all departments, internal and external, required to support the Information Technologies used by the CHTN Western Division.  Mr. Clement is also pursuing his PMP (Project Management Professional) certification from PMI.

Administrative Assistant

  
 

 

 


Kiley Wease
Kiley Wease is the Account's Receivable personnel for CHTN Western Division.  In May 2011, Kiley received her Bachelor's of Science in public affairs (BSPA) from Indiana University in public financial management. She is responsible for all the administrative aspects of CHTN Western, such as invoicing. In the future, Kiley hopes to receive her MBA in healthcare and work for the finance department of a hospital.