Education & Training
Medical School
University of Damascus School of Medicine
Fellowship
Pediatrics, Sleep Medicine
- University of Louisville Hospital
Insurances
MU Health Care participates with most major managed care organizations. To find out whether MU Health Care is a participating provider in your insurance plan or network, or for information on co-payments and deductibles, please contact your insurance carrier directly.
In the News
Academic Information
Office
400 N Keene Street
Suite 112
Columbia, MO 65201
United States
Research Profile
Leila Kheirandish-Gozal, MD, MSc, is a tenured and endowed professor of pediatrics and Director of the Child Health Research Institute (CHRI) at the University of Missouri, Columbia. She is one of the most celebrated pediatric sleep medicine experts in the world, ranking No. 4 among specialists in 2018.
Dr. Kheirandish-Gozal’s research focus is both on mechanisms and biomarkers which may mediate the strong correlation between obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and vascular dysfunction. She was instrumental in the development of non-invasive techniques that enable today’s assessments of endothelial function as a marker of cardiovascular risk in children. Furthermore, she described the presence of divergent phenotypes of vascular dysfunction in children with similar OSA severity, and she provided conceptual framework that attempted to assign a role to “endothelial repair processes” as being involved in such divergent phenotype.
In her breakthrough work in the OSA field, she revealed that differences in the recruitment and mobilization of endothelial progenitor cells and the chemokines that promote such mobilization accounted for a substantial proportion of the variance in endothelial function in children with OSA.
Research Interests
- Sleep Disordered Breathing
- Transnational Research
- Sleep
- Sleep apnea
- Sleep fragmentation and deprivation
- Intermittent hypoxia
- Exosomes
- Biomarkers
- Endothelial function
- Adipose tissue
- Cognition and behavior
- Gut microbiome
- Inflammation
- Macrophages
- Tumor biology
- Machine learning
Areas of Expertise
- Pediatric Sleep Medicine
- Sleep Medicine
Awards & Honors
- Order of Extraordinary Merit from Peruvian Medical Association.Lima, Peru-2011
- Professional Woman of the Year. National Association of Professional Women -2011
- Dean’s Citation Award. School of Public Health. The University of Louisville, KY-2012
- Marquis Who is Who in America, 66th edition. 2012,2013
- An Emerging Leaders by American Thoracic Society-2016
- Elected as the member of Pediatric Research Society-2016
- American Thoracic Society Presidential Appreciation Award-2017
- Elected as the member of American Pediatric Society-2017
- Inaugural Fellow of American Thoracic Society -2018
- Society for Neuroscience 2003-2010
- American Academy of Sleep Medicine 2006-2014
- Iranian Sleep Society- Since 2007
- Sleep Research Society- Since 2007
- American Thoracic Society- Since 2009
- Illinois Sleep Society- Since 2010
- Society for Pediatric Research - Since 2011
- Society for Behavioral Sleep Medicine -Founding Member- Since 2011
- International Pediatric Sleep Association-Since 2013
- European Sleep Research Society -Since 2015
- Sociedad Espanola de Sueno (Spanish Sleep Society)-Since 2016
- American Pediatric Society-Since 2017
Publications
- Kheirandish-Gozal L, Gozal D. Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Inflammation: Proof of Concept Based on Two Illustrative Cytokines. Int J Mol Sci. 2019 Jan 22;20(3). pii: E459. doi: 10.3390/ijms20030459. Review. PubMed PMID: 30678164; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6387387.
- Kheirandish-Gozal L, Bhattacharjee R, Bandla HPR, Gozal D. Antiinflammatory therapy outcomes for mild OSA in children. Chest. 2014 Jul;146(1):88-95. doi: 10.1378/chest.13-2288. PubMed PMID: 24504096; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4077412.
- Kheirandish-Gozal L, Farré R. The injury theory, endothelial progenitors, and sleep apnea. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2013 Jan 1;187(1):5-7. doi:10.1164/rccm.201210-1950ED. PubMed PMID: 23281349; PubMed Central PMCID:PMC3570643.
- Kheirandish-Gozal L, Khalyfa A, Gozal D, Bhattacharjee R, Wang Y. Endothelialdysfunction in children with obstructive sleep apnea is associated with epigenetic changes in the eNOS gene. Chest. 2013 Apr;143(4):971-977. doi:10.1378/chest.12-2026. PubMed PMID: 23328840; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3616686.
- Kheirandish-Gozal L, Dayyat EA, Eid NS, Morton RL, Gozal D. Obstructive sleep apnea in poorly controlled asthmatic children: effect of adenotonsillectomy. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2011 Sep;46(9):913-8. doi: 10.1002/ppul.21451. Epub 2011 Apr 4. PubMed PMID: 21465680; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3156307.