Tom Beckermann

Biography

I graduated High School in Green River, Wyoming in 1997 and started college in 2001. I received an AA in General Studies at East Central College in Union, Missouri in 2003, and a BS in Biological Sciences from Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri in 2006. In 2006 I began a graduate program at Vanderbilt University, with specific interests in Virology and Gene Therapy. My focus quickly turned to cardiac disorders, specifically on ion channel proteins that are essential for the heart to function, and characterizing the function of those proteins and their response to specific drugs. I received my PhD in 2014 from Vanderbilt's Department of Pharmacology and transitioned to a post-doctoral fellowship that same year at Vanderbilt.  During my post-doc, just prior to joining Belmont, I studied kidney disorders and focused on the treatment of these disorders using novel techniques in gene therapy. My research interests involve cardiac channelopathies and mechanisms of gene therapy, specifically using viral vectors to treat genetic disorders.