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Terence Dermody, MD

Dr. Terry Dermody is the Director of the Medical Scientist Training Program and the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He received his B.S. degree from Cornell University in 1978 and his M.D. degree from Columbia University in 1982. In 1985, Dr. Dermody completed an internal medicine residency at the Presbyterian Hospital in New York, and in 1988, completed fellowships in infectious diseases and molecular virology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Dermody joined the Department of Pediatrics at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 1990 and became Professor in 2001. He is also Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Vanderbilt and Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Sciences at Meharry Medical College. Dr. Dermody serves as Director of the Molecular Virology course and Virology Section Director of the Medical Microbiology and Immunology course. He lectures on virology and infectious disease topics in several other graduate and medical school courses, and he attends on the pediatric infectious diseases consult service at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. His teaching efforts have been recognized by several awards, including a Vanderbilt University Chair of Teaching Excellence.

Dr. Dermody’s research interests include viral pathogenesis and vaccine development. His research focuses on mammalian reovirus, an important experimental model for studies of viral replication and disease. Chief among his research contributions include identification of reovirus attachment and internalization receptors, elucidation of reovirus-induced innate immune response signaling pathways, and development of plasmid-based reverse genetics for reovirus. He has published more than 150 articles, reviews, and chapters, and his work is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Lamb Foundation. Dr. Dermody has been recognized for his research accomplishments by the Vanderbilt Ernest W. Goodpasture Faculty Research Award and an NIH MERIT Award. He is an editor for the Journal of Virology and mBio, and he is a member of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease Award Advisory Committee. Dr. Dermody is a member of the American Academy of Microbiology, the American Pediatrics Society, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and the Society for Pediatric Research. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and president of the American Society for Virology.