“Research often begins with inquiring minds asking deep questions,” said Jennifer Pietenpol, PhD. “But making discoveries requires a team effort.”

During his 20-year career at VUMC, he developed the Vanderbilt Small Bowel Center and was a leader in endoscopic innovation.

The findings represent a significant advance toward development of more effective, targeted therapies for congenital diarrhea and enteropathies

Mr. Ayers and his wife, Janet, have been a major philanthropic force in all of Tennessee.

The research is another step toward development of targeted therapies aimed at reducing the incidence and medical burden of this common condition.

He and his wife, Patricia Ingram Hart, who died in 2022, endowed multiple chairs across the School of Medicine and Peabody College of Education and Human Development.