Photo
Language
English
Title and Department
Professor of Medicine
Department of Medicine, Division of Genetic Medicine
Professional bio
Michelle Southard-Smith, PhD, is a tenured professor in the Division of Genetic Medicine, in the Departments of Medicine and Cell & Developmental Biology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
After completing postdoctoral studies at the University of Michigan in Human Genetics, Dr. Southard-Smith was awarded an Intramural Research Training Award Fellowship at the National Human Genome Research Institute for work on developmental genetics. At the NIH she identified mutation of the Sox10 gene as the underlying cause for neurocristopathies and the Hirschsprung aganglionosis in Dominant megacolon mice and has since pursued studies of neural crest lineages and their roles in development and function of visceral organs.
Dr. Southard-Smith was recruited to Vanderbilt in 1999 as a Howard Hughes Research Scholar. Currently, her team focuses on neural crest lineages that form both the enteric nervous system of the intestine and the pelvic autonomic neurons that innervate the lower urinary tract using mouse models of Hirschsprung disease and Spina bifida. She is frequently invited to speak at national and international conferences on development of visceral organ innervation and her expertise in this area is regularly sought for review panels by the National Institutes of Health and multiple international agencies.
Dr. Southard-Smith is a member of the American Gastrological Association, the Society of Developmental Biology, the International Mammalian Genome Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She was elected an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow in 2017 for her contributions to developmental neurogenetics. She has received funding from the March of Dimes and the National Institutes of Health and was selected to serve as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Gilliam Fellowship Mentor in 2019.
After completing postdoctoral studies at the University of Michigan in Human Genetics, Dr. Southard-Smith was awarded an Intramural Research Training Award Fellowship at the National Human Genome Research Institute for work on developmental genetics. At the NIH she identified mutation of the Sox10 gene as the underlying cause for neurocristopathies and the Hirschsprung aganglionosis in Dominant megacolon mice and has since pursued studies of neural crest lineages and their roles in development and function of visceral organs.
Dr. Southard-Smith was recruited to Vanderbilt in 1999 as a Howard Hughes Research Scholar. Currently, her team focuses on neural crest lineages that form both the enteric nervous system of the intestine and the pelvic autonomic neurons that innervate the lower urinary tract using mouse models of Hirschsprung disease and Spina bifida. She is frequently invited to speak at national and international conferences on development of visceral organ innervation and her expertise in this area is regularly sought for review panels by the National Institutes of Health and multiple international agencies.
Dr. Southard-Smith is a member of the American Gastrological Association, the Society of Developmental Biology, the International Mammalian Genome Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She was elected an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow in 2017 for her contributions to developmental neurogenetics. She has received funding from the March of Dimes and the National Institutes of Health and was selected to serve as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Gilliam Fellowship Mentor in 2019.