Spotlight on the SUS 2019- 2020 Mid Career Award
Clara Nan-hi Lee, MD, MPP, FACS
Associate Professor
Department of Plastic Surgery, College of Medicine
Division of Health Services Management and Policy, College of Public Health (by courtesy)
Director of Women’s Academic Advancement, College of Medicine
The Ohio State University
Dr. Clara Lee is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon and health services researcher at The Ohio State University. She obtained a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard College, a Master of Public Policy degree from Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a Medical Degree from Yale School of Medicine. She completed residency in general surgery at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center and residency in plastic surgery at the University of California San Francisco. Her first faculty appointment was at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, where she had appointments in the Schools of Medicine and Public Health.
Dr. Lee’s research is devoted to understanding and improving how patients with cancer make decisions about their surgical treatments. Dr. Lee has expertise in patient-reported outcomes of breast reconstruction and patient decision making about breast cancer treatments. She has developed measures of the quality of decisions about early stage breast cancer treatments and has experience with the design, implementation, and analysis of multi-site studies of newly diagnosed cancer patients and longer-term cancer survivors. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Pelotonia Foundation, the Plastic Surgery Foundation, and the Informed Medical Decisions Foundation.
Mentors: Michael Pignone, MD and Peter Ubel, MD
Project: Implementing a Breast Reconstruction Decision Support Tool in Diverse Practice Settings
The project seeks to optimize and evaluate a decision aid called BREASTChoice, to support decisions about breast reconstruction. The aims are to elicit key stakeholder input, modify and prepare BREASTChoice for implementation, and evaluate the tool’s effects in a randomized controlled trial in a diverse population.
Spotlight on the SUS Resident Scholar Awards
Sponsored by an educational grant from
SUS Foundation
2019-2020
Austin Dosch, MD
Mentor: Nipun Merchant, MD
SUS Member Sponsor: Nipun Merchant, MD
Dr. Dosch has completed three years of residency training in General Surgery at the University of California, Irvine, where he developed a strong interest in surgical oncology and hepatobiliary diseases. In the past two years, he has been working as a post-doctoral research fellow in the laboratory of his mentor, Dr. Nipun Merchant, at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. The lab is interested in elucidating the molecular mechanisms of therapeutic resistance in pancreatic cancer. Specifically, Dr. Dosch’s project is focused on how the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-1 influences tumor-stromal interactions to promote resistance to cytotoxic chemotherapy. Receipt of this award from the SUS will help greatly in the goal to further understand the phenomenon of stromal-mediated therapeutic resistance in pancreatic cancer and also provide Dr. Dosch the important foundation to become the academic surgeon-scientist he aspires to be.
2018- 2019
Raoud Marayati, MD
Mentor: Elizabeth Beierle, MD
SUS Member Sponsor: Herbert Chen, MD
Project: PIM3 Kinase Promotes Tumor Metastasis in Hepatoblastoma
Dr. Marayati received her medical degree from the University of Aleppo-Faculty of Medicine in 2013. After graduating from medical school, she joined Dr. Jen Jen Yeh’s laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, where she spent 3 years understanding the molecular biology and genetics that promote tumorigenesis and metastasis of colorectal and pancreatic cancer. Dr. Marayati subsequently matched into the University of Alabama at Birmingham General Surgery residency program, where she recently completed her second year of residency. She joined Dr. Elizabeth Beierle’s basic science and translational laboratory in July 2018 as a postdoctoral fellow, where she will be investigating the role of PIM3 kinase and its downstream mechanism in promoting tumor metastasis in Hepatoblastoma. Her proposed studies will yield novel insights into signaling pathways and provide information that will allow for improved treatment of metastatic or relapsed disease. Dr. Marayati is fortunate to be mentored by Dr. Beierle, who is a leader in the field of signal transduction pathways in pediatric solid tumors. Dr. Marayati plans to complete her clinical training in General Surgery followed by a Pediatric Surgery fellowship. Her goal is to become an independently funded pediatric surgeon-scientist at an academic medical institution, where she can establish and maintain an active clinical and research career.
Spotlight on the SUS Resident Scholar Awards
Sponsored by an educational grant from
KARL STORZ
2019-2020
Brian Fleischer, MD
Mentor: John Alverdy, MD
SUS Member Sponsor: John Alverdy, MD
Project: Analyzing the Sequelae of Non-Native Geometric Constructs on Bowel and its Effects on Anastomotic Leak
Dr. Fleischer was born in New York City and grew up in Suffern, NY, a suburb located approximately 20 miles northwest of Manhattan. After graduating from high school he attended Cornell University for both his undergraduate (B.S. Biological Engineering, Class of 2012) and graduate studies (M.Eng. Biomedical Engineering, Class of 2013). His education then took him to New Orleans where he enrolled at the Tulane University School of Medicine in the fall of 2013, culminating in his graduation in the spring of 2017. Following graduation Dr. Fleischer moved to Chicago to begin work as a General Surgery Resident at the University of Chicago. He has completed the first two clinical years of my residency and is about to embark on a two-year research fellowship under the mentorship of Dr. John Alverdy. His project is entitled “Analyzing the Sequelae of Non-Native Geometric Constructs on Bowel and its Effects on Anastomotic Leak”. Dr. Fleischer will be utilizing an in vivo mouse model, coupled with ex vivo analysis and computational simulations, to study how the various anastomotic connections we create in gastrointestinal surgery perturb the flow of intestinal contents and create unintended centers of stress in the bowel wall that may affect the rate of anastomotic leak.
2018-2019
David Mahvi, MD
SUS Member Sponsor and Mentor: Yolonda Colson, MD, PhD
Project: Novel Doxorubicin-Eluting Polymer Film to Prevent Locoregional Recurrence in Sarcoma
Dr. Mahvi began his academic career at Duke University, where he studied biology and chemistry as well as investigated the use of aptamers in cancer therapy. He completed his medical school training at the University of Wisconsin, graduating with research honors for his work with adoptive T-cell transfer and checkpoint inhibition immunotherapy for melanoma. After matching into the general surgery residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and completing two clinical years of clinical training, he joined the laboratory of Dr. Yolonda Colson and Dr. Chandrajit Raut working on basic and translational testing of novel drug delivery systems for the treatment of soft tissue sarcoma. Dr. Mahvi’s project will focus on a newly developed polymer film loaded with doxorubicin which can deliver high doses of active drug to the tumor bed with minimal systemic uptake. He will perform in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo efficacy analysis in multiple soft tissue sarcoma subtypes as well as cardiotoxicity testing in non-tumor bearing mice.
Spotlight on the SUS Junior Faculty Research Scholar Award
Sponsored by an educational grant from the SUS Foundation
2019-2020
Alex Cuenca, MD, PhD
Mentor: James Markmann, MD
SUS Member Sponsor: James Markmann, MD
Project: The role of adjuvant induced myeloid-derived suppressor cells in allograft tolerance.
Following graduation from New College of Florida, Dr. Cuenca completed both his medical school and general surgery residency at the University of Florida College of Medicine. He obtained a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology with a dissertation focused on the neonatal innate immunity and sepsis during his research hiatus from clinical training, as well as an NIH F32 grant to support his efforts. Following the completion of his general surgery residency, he subsequently completed a pediatric surgery fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital. Due to his interest in pediatric hepatobiliary disease, immunology, and transplant surgery, he ultimately decided to pursue an abdominal transplant surgery fellowship and will complete his clinical training at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in July of 2019. He will start as an assistant professor of surgery in August of 2019 at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he will continue the work that he started at MGH.
The focus of the proposal will be on the role of innate immunity in allograft tolerance. As innate immunity coordinates the adaptive immune response towards either allograft rejection or tolerance, the goal of the study will be to determine if an adjuvant can be administered to condition the transplant recipient towards a more tolerogenic state. His mentor and SUS sponsor for this project is Dr. James F Markmann, a NIH funded surgeon-scientist and expert in transplant immunology at MGH. Ultimately, Dr. Cuenca’s vision is to expand this work to examine other adjuvants that may be used to augment innate immune suppressor cell populations in order to promote transplant tolerance and decrease the overall burden of necessary but deleterious immunosuppressive medication regimens.
2018 – 2019
Elsie Ross, MD, MSc
Mentor: Nigam Shah, MD
SUS Member Sponsor: Mary Hawn, MD
Project: A precision medicine approach for the early identification of peripheral artery disease
Dr. Ross graduated with Honors with a major in Human Biology from Stanford University. She then attended Stanford University School of Medicine where she was awarded a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. She was also awarded a United States-United Kingdom Fulbright Scholarship, which enabled a year of study in the UK where she obtained a Masters in Health Policy, Planning and Financing from the London School of Economics and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She went on to complete her integrated vascular surgery training at Stanford where she pursued post-doctoral training in biomedical informatics with a focus on harnessing big data to predict patient outcomes using electronic health record data. She is now an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Ross’ proposal will focus on utilizing clinical and genetic data coupled with machine learning algorithms to predict risk of peripheral artery disease with the aim of developing automated screening tool technology for electronic health record systems. She will be mentored by Dr. Nigam Shah, a world-renowned biomedical informatics specialist at Stanford. Dr. Ross believes that big data and artificial intelligence will revolutionize how we are able to take care of patients in the future, allowing clinicians to identify and prevent disease much earlier than before.
Spotlight on the SUS 2017 – 2018 Resident Scholar Awards
Sponsored by an educational grant from
SUS Foundation
Linda Jin, MD
SUS Member Sponsor and Mentor: William Hawkins, MD
Project: Sigma-2 Ligands and Targeted Cancer Therapy
Dr. Jin began her premedical career at University of Washington in Seattle where she studied both biochemistry and poetry composition, and began her research career in organic synthetic chemistry. After college and two years in management consulting, she started medical school at Washington University in St. Louis, where she completed several projects in clinical outcomes in surgical oncology and was awarded the Harvey Butcher Prize in Surgery, given annually to a member of the graduating class that shows the most promise in general surgery. She subsequently matched into the Washington University/Barnes Jewish Hospital General Surgery Residency where she completed two years of clinical training before joining the lab of Dr. William Hawkins. Using basic molecular biology techniques, Dr. Jin’s project will focus on optimizing selective cancer targeting using sigma-2 ligand based drugs through receptor identification and understanding how sigma-2 ligands impact cancer cell metabolism. These findings will advance translation of sigma-2 ligand based drugs to the clinic through improved drug design and patient selection.
Spotlight on the SUS 2017 – 2018 Resident Scholar Awards
Sponsored by an educational grant from KARL STORZ
Brooks Udelsman, MD
SUS Member Sponsor and Mentor: Keith Lillemoe, MD
Project: Development of a framework for improving documentation of goals of care discussions within the electronic health record among complex surgical patients
Dr. Udelsman began his academic career at Williams College where he graduated cum laude with a double major in Chemistry and English. He went on to the Yale University School of Medicine where he made the decision to focus on surgery after his third-year clinic rotations. During his time at Yale Dr. Udelsman was awarded a Howard Hughes Medical Institute student research fellowship. This grant allowed him to complete his thesis on vascular tissue engineering which was awarded highest honors in 2014 when he graduated with an MD and Masters in Health Sciences. For the last three years Dr. Udelsman has been engaged in his clinical training in general surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital. During this time, he has shifted his focus to health care delivery systems focusing on the issues surrounding resource allocation, efficacy and financial and emotional burdens during the transition to end-of-life care. In this regard, Dr. Udelsman is excited to be joining the Codman Center for Clinical Effectiveness in Surgery and to begin his project focusing on improvement of goals of care documentation and communication among complex surgical patients. He feels especially fortunate to have the support of a consummate leader in academic surgery in Dr. Keith Lillemoe as well specific guidance from experts in these areas in Dr. Zara Cooper and Dr. David Chang. Through this work he hopes that we can ensure alignment of patient preferences and the surgical interventions they receive. Dr. Udelsman plans to continue his work in health care delivery and surgical care at the end of life as he continues beyond residency into a career in academic surgery.
Spotlight on the SUS 2016 – 2017 Junior Faculty Research Scholar Award
Sponsored by an educational grant from the SUS Foundation
Ankit Bharat, MD
Mentor: Scott Budinger, MD
Sponsor: Nathaniel Soper, MD
Dr. Bharat received his training at Christian Medical College in India following which he joined Washington University in St Louis to purse a post-doctoral research fellowship in transplant and tumor immunology. During the three year research fellowship, he was fortunate to be mentored by world class investigators and developed a keen interest in lung biology and transplantation. He subsequently completed general surgery residency and cardiothoracic surgery fellowship at Washington University. He then joined Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in July 2013 as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Surgery. With institutional support and strong mentorship, he started both a clinical and research program in lung transplantation. He currently also hold the position of the Director of Clinical Lung Transplantation at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. His clinical practice focuses on patients with complex thoracic diseases and providing advanced therapies such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and lung transplantation to those with end-stage lung failure. His basic laboratory investigates mechanisms of lung allograft rejection as well as lung repair following injury. He is currently supported by a K08 Mentored Clinical Scientist Development Award from National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, a Biomedical Grant from the American Lung Association and Gibbon Scholarship from the American Association for Thoracic Surgery.
The proposal for the SUS award will focus on identifying the role of lung-tissue restricted autoimmunity in the development of lung allograft rejection. My mentor for this proposal is Dr. Scott Budinger who is a Professor of Pulmonary and a successful clinician scientist. He is well published and has received numerous grants from both NIH and the Department of Defense. Additionally, he has a long-track record of mentoring aspiring clinician-scientists. Upon completion of this work, we hope to validate the practice of monitoring and treating lung transplant recipients for lung-tissue specific autoimmunity in order to improve lung transplant outcomes.
Spotlight on the SUS 2016 – 2017 Resident Scholar Awards
Sponsored by an educational grant from the SUS Foundation
Alessandra Moore, MD
Sponsor and Mentor: Michael Longaker, MD
Project: M2 Macrophage Enrichment Enhances Cutaneous Wound Healing Via Recruitment of Angiogenic Precursor Cells
Dr. Moore’s medical education began at Hobart and William Smith Colleges with in depth teaching in cellular biology, evolution, chemistry, physics, and physiology. After college, she joined the Center for Engineering in Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital working under Dr. Mehmet Toner and Dr. Sunitha Nagrath and training in a variety of techniques including microfluidic device design and fabrication. She was accepted to the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 2010 and was awarded the Clinical and Translational Research Scholarship. She subsequently matched into the Brigham and Women’s Hospital General Surgery Residency where she recently completed her second year of residency. Based on her prior experience, she decided to pursue bioengineering as her research focus and is very excited to be working as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University under Dr. Michael Longaker. The awarded project focuses on the use of macrophages to speed and improve wound healing by enhancing angiogenesis, a technique that will be directly applicable to the surgical patient population.
Spotlight on the SUS 2016 – 2017 Resident Scholar Awards
Sponsored by an educational grant from KARL STORZ
Dani Odette Gonzalez, MD
Sponsor: Benedict C. Nwomeh, MD, MPH
Mentor: Katherine J. Deans, MD, MHSc
Project: Engaging Families Through Shared Knowledge: a Randomized Controlled Trial of Open Access to a Rapid Learning Healthcare System (RLHS)
Dr. Dani Gonzalez completed medical school at the Howard University College of Medicine, where she developed an interest in health services and outcomes research. This interest persisted throughout her surgical residency at The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. After her third year of surgical residency, she applied for a two-year Pediatric Surgery Research Fellowship at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, where she works in the Center for Surgical Outcomes Research with Drs. Katherine Deans and Peter Minneci. Dr. Gonzalez’s project for the Society of University Surgeons – Karl Storz Resident Research Scholar Award is “Engaging Families Through Shared Knowledge: a Randomized Controlled Trial of Open Access to a Rapid Learning Healthcare System (RLHS)”. The aim of the study is to assess whether providing patients and families access to RLHS data improves patient-centered outcomes in children with complex colorectal diseases.