S. Bobo Tanner, MD, graduated cum laude from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a BA in History and Science, and received his medical degree with honors from Bowman Gray Medical School of Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. 
He completed his Internal Medicine residency and fellowships in Rheumatology and in Allergy/Immunology at Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville TN.
He founded and is the Director of the Vanderbilt Osteoporosis Clinic in the Division of Rheumatology.
He is a past president and board member of the International Society for Clinical Densitometry (ISCD) where he teaches the Quality Bone Density course and helps develops professional guidelines for the use and reporting of DXA. He was recognized as the ISCD Clinician of the Year in 2007 and received the President’s Award from the Tennessee Rheumatology Society in 2017. He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Irish Dual-energy X-ray Absorptiometry Society in 2024 and the Paul Miller MD Educator of the Year Award at the Santa Fe Bone Symposium, 24th Annual Meeting in 2024.