Vinodh Narayanan, MD

Vinodh Narayanan, MD, is a pediatric neurologist at the Barrow Neurological Institute at Phoenix Children's. Dr. Narayanan has a special interest in neurogenetics - using genomic methods to understand the genetic and molecular basis of neurological disorders and using this knowledge to develop novel treatments. He cares for patients who have neurodevelopmental disorders and suspected genetic disorders. Rett syndrome is one such neurological disorder that has been a focus of his research for many years.

Dr. Narayanan earned his Bachelor of Science in physics with honors from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and a Master of Arts in physics from Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. He graduated with his medical degree from Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans and trained as a pediatric resident at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Dr. Narayanan performed his clinical neurology training in St. Louis as an adult neurology resident at Barnes Hospital and then as a pediatric neurology resident at St. Louis Children's Hospital. He returned to Baltimore to serve as a research fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the Department of Neurology. Dr. Narayanan joined the child neurology faculty at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. He then moved to Arizona to join the child neurology group at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center and launched his research program at the Barrow Neurological Institute focusing on preclinical models of Rett syndrome.

In 2005, Dr. Kirk Aleck and Dr. Narayanan started the Neurogenetics Consultation clinic at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center and established a research collaboration with the Neurogenomics division at TGen - the Translational Genomics Research Institute. This morphed into the Center for Rare Childhood Disorders (C4RCD) at TGen in 2012.

Dr. Narayanan is board certified by the American Board of Pediatrics and the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, with a special qualification in child neurology. He is a fellow of the Child Neurology Society and a member of the Society for Neuroscience and the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics.

Dr. Narayanan was honored with the Roger and Mary Brumback Lifetime Achievement Award from the Child Neurology Society. He is committed to graduate medical education and is a faculty member at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, Arizona State University, the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), Barrow Neurological Institute at Phoenix Children's and Creighton University School of Medicine.

A prolific researcher, Dr. Narayanan has published more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals including Brain, Genes, Clinical Genetics, Annals of Neurology and the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. He sits on several medical and scientific journal review boards and panels.

Along with colleagues in the Division of Neurology at Phoenix Children's and the Translational Genomics Research Institute, Dr. Narayanan works to grow the Center for Rare Childhood Disorders, which was launched in 2012. A challenge for the future is to offer coordinated, lifelong care to patients with rare neurological disorders.

In his free time, Dr. Narayanan enjoys tennis and other sports, hiking, classical Indian music, traveling and time with his family.