The Aronoff Lab consists of many individuals with diverse backgrounds in varying fields of science. As our research efforts grow, the need for a multi-disciplinary team is essential to our success.
David M. Aronoff, MD
Chair, Department of Medicine
David Aronoff received his BS in Microbiology from Indiana University and his MD at Tufts University. He completed internship and residency training, including a year as chief resident, in internal medicine at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Aronoff stayed at Vanderbilt to complete a clinical fellowship in infectious diseases and a research fellowship in clinical pharmacology. He then joined the faculty in infectious diseases at the University of Michigan where he also completed a research postdoctoral fellowship in immunology.
Dr. Aronoff established his independent career as a physician-scientist in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Michigan, where he held faculty appointments in both Internal Medicine and Microbiology and Immmunology. In Ann Arbor his research focused on characterizing host-microbial interactions in the context of severe bacterial infections, with a primary interest in innate immunity of the gut and the reproductive tract. Increasingly, Dr. Aronoff’s research centered upon reproductive immunology and bacterial infections complicating pregnancy.
Dr. Aronoff returned to Vanderbilt in 2013 as director of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine with secondary faculty appointments in the Department of Pathology, Microbiology, & Immunology and the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology. In Nashville he established the Vanderbilt Preventing Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes & Prematurity (Pre3) Initiative, a collaborative, transdisciplinary group of investigators working in maternal-child health. From 2020 to 2022, as director of the Division of Infectious Diseases, Dr. Aronoff’s efforts largely focused on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, in 2022 Dr. Aronoff was recruited back to Indiana University to serve as chair of the Department of Medicine.
Dr. Aronoff is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and a fellow in both the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the American Academy of Microbiology. His research lab continues to study reproductive immunology and infections that complicate pregnancy. He has held national leadership roles in the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American Society for Microbiology, the Anaerobe Society of the Americas and is President-Elect of the American Society for Reproductive Immunology. Dr. Aronoff has received numerous governmental and non-governmental research grants, including support from the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Burroughs Wellcome Fund, The March of Dimes and the Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity & Stillbirth.
Current Lab Members
Lisa Rogers
Research Analyst
Lab Manager
Lisa Rogers received her BS in Human Biology from Michigan State University in 2002. She then researched Alzheimer’s disease at Michigan State University for several years before relocating to University of Colorado to study HIV disease in the lamina propria of the gut. Lisa was recruited to Dr. Aronoff’s laboratory in 2010 as lab manager at the University of Michigan studying the gram positive anaerobic bacterium Clostridium sordellii and the lipid mediator prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) to observe the innate immune defenses against the invading pathogen in the female reproductive tract. The Aronoff Lab relocated to Vanderbilt University from 2013 to 2021 where research was focused was on the impact of metabolic stress on human placental macrophage function. In 2022 the lab relocated to Indiana University in Indianapolis where Lisa is currently working on the human placental macrophage response to Group B Streptococcus.
Kyle Firestone
Research Analyst
Kyle Firestone received his BS from Purdue in Biology and Mathematics in 2012. Following graduation he spent four years working in a biochemistry lab at IUPUI researching proteasome assembly. He then moved into a microbiologist role at a local brewery before spending several years exploring opportunities outside the laboratory. Kyle moved back into a research lab setting in 2020, joining the COVID-19 mitigation team set up by Indiana University to monitor infection levels across the universities campuses. Upon the conclusion of the mitigation program, he joined the newly relocated Aronoff lab where he currently studies the interaction between Group B Streptococcus virulence factors and human placental macrophages.
Previous Lab Members
Anna Claudia Calvielli Castelo Branco
PhD Candidate, rotating student
Anna received her Pharmacist and Master’s Degrees from the Immunology Program at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences of the University of São Paulo (ICB/USP), Brazil, with a project that evaluated the influence of inflammation in human placental explants during Zika virus infection. She is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Immunology at ICB/USP studying the influence of gestational obesity on placental macrophage function in the context of Zika virus infection. She spent a 6-month rotation period during 2022/2023 at Indiana University, under the supervision of Dr. Aronoff, studying the interactions between Group B Streptococcus and human placental macrophages.