Beyond the court: Wake Forest and Vanderbilt work together
When Wake Forest Men’s Basketball travels to Nashville to take on the Commodores of Vanderbilt University on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, it’ll be a clash of gold and black on the court.
But together, these two research powerhouses are changing medicine for good.
Safe intubation during emergencies
Maintaining an open airway is life-saving for patients. Researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and Vanderbilt University Medical Center are collaborating to make emergency intubation – the process of inserting a breathing tube into a patient’s airway – safer for patients.
In one Department of Defense-funded clinical trial with results published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Wake Forest’s Dr. Kevin Gibbs worked alongside Vanderbilt investigators Dr. Matthew Semler and Dr. Jonathan Casey to reduce some of the life-threatening risks associated with intubation. They found that changing the way patients receive oxygen before intubation substantially reduced the risk of cardiac arrest or blood oxygen levels dropping. Building on that momentum, Dr. Gibbs and Wake Forest colleagues Dr. Jessica Palakshappa and Dr. John Gaillard partnered with Vanderbilt’s Dr. Casey on a multi-center study that included 2,365 patients. They found that the choice of sedation medication reduced the risk of dangerously low blood pressure during emergency intubation.
Seeking better kidney transplant outcomes
Wake Forest University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers work together as part of the nationwide APOL1 Long-term Kidney Transplantation Outcomes Network (APOLLO), funded by the NIH’s National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Coordinated by Wake Forest, the multi-year, multi-center initiative studies kidney transplant outcomes to enhance patient safety and reduce health disparities facing Black patients. Wake Forest’s Dr. Barry Freedman, a prominent nephrologist, serves as a principal investigator and long-standing leader of the APOLLO Study; Dr. Kelly A. Birdwell, associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, is principal investigator for the Vanderbilt Clinical Hub and co-designed the study. Ana Iltis, professor of philosophy and director of Wake Forest’s Center for Bioethics, Health and Society, published a paper titled “Improving Kidney Disease Research in Black Community: The Essential Role of Black Voices in the APOLLO Study.”
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