Section of Surgical Sciences Research

Section of Surgical Sciences

The following table represents a selection of current or recent research projects conducted by Vanderbilt Surgical Sciences faculty members and their assistants. Last Updated: Tuesday, February 04, 2003

Dept/Div	Researcher Last Name	Initial/s	Research Type (Basic/Clinical)	Project Focus	Goal	Resident Assistant
Hepatobiliary Surgery & Liver Transplantation	Chari	RS	Basic	Cell volume regulated gene expression in hepatocytes	To evaluate the impact of changes in cell volume on proliferative signal transduction	Christopher Anderson , MD
Hepatobiliary Surgery & Liver Transplantation	Chari	RS	Basic	Altered mitochondrial calcium uptake in ischemia-reperfusion injury	To elucidate the mechanisms governing mitochondrial calcium uptake during cold ischemia and reperfusion associated with liver transplantation.
Hepatobiliary Surgery & Liver Transplantation	Chari	RS	Clinical	Role of PET imaging in acute cellular rejection	Determine whether there is a detectable difference in PET imaging during an episode of acute cellular rejection following orthotopic liver transplantation
Surgical Oncology	Phay	J	Basic	Increased glucose metabolism seen in tumors is regulated by altered hexokinase expression and function.	Understand abnormal hexokinase function as a potential therapeutic target in cancer.
Surgical Oncology	Pearson	S	Basic	Regulation of junctional proteins during epithelial transformation.	Understanding the pathogenesis of colorectal cancer
Surgical Oncology	Grau	A M	Basic/clinical	Role of TGF-beta, smads, and RhoB in the regulation of the survival factor NF-kappaB in colon and pancreatic cancer. Mechanisms and effects on apoptosis induced by chemotherapeutic agents.	To gain understanding in the tumor promoting events regulated by TGF-beta, in order to find biological targets for therapeutic interventions in cancer.	Surgical Oncology
Trauma & Surgical Critical Care	Addison May , MD		Basic Science Research	Pulmonary MnSOD is nitrated following hepatic ischemia-reperfusion	Examine the factors contributing to lung injury following Ischemia Reperfusion	Keith Gray
Trauma & Surgical Critical Care	Addison May , MD		NIH Grant	Impact of Gender on Infection in Hospitalized Patients	4 yr Prospective Study that examines cytokine, hormonal & gender influence on incidents & outcomes of infection in critically ill patients	None
Trauma	Morris Norris Grogan	J P E	Both	Simon project: Improving utilization of bedside medical device data in critical care	1. To more efficiently utilize physician and staff resources and improve quality of care through automated event detection, periodic reporting, and remote display of physiologic data. 2. To increase understanding of physiologic mechanisms related to outcome and/or adverse events in critically ill patients through novel data collection and analysis.
Vascular	Guzman	RJ	Basic	The role of Bone Morphogenetic Proteins in vascular remodeling	To develop strategies to inhibit pathologic arterial remodeling	Matt Corriere Shane O’keeffe

Dept/Div	Researcher LastName	Initial/s	Research Type (Basic/Clinical)	Project Focus	Goal	Resident Assistant
Neurosurgery	Konrad	P	Basic	Mechanisms of deep brain stimulation (DBS) on neural network rhythms	To understand how DBS modulates neural behavior in treating Parkinson’s disease, tremor, dystonia, and pain	Jeff Albea
			Basic	Development of pulsed optical energy as a neural stimulator	To understand how pulsed low energy laser light can stimulate neural tissue	Jeff Albea
			Clinical	StarFix microplatform based stereotaxy	Clinical testing of new stereotactic frame apparatus	John Song
			Clinical	Integration of functional imaging in surgical navigation	Integration of fMRI data into the Stealth system	Carl Sillay
			Clinical	GDNF delivered intraparenchymally to treat progressive supra-nuclear palsy (PSP)	First use of growth hormone delivered to lenticular nuclei in PSP parkinsonian patients

Dept/Div	Researcher LastName	Initial/s	Research Type (Basic/Clinical)	Project Focus	Goal	Resident Assistant
Otolaryngology	Ossoff	R.H.	Clinical	Study evaluating the degree of burn out among academic department chairs in Otolaryngology	To understand the degree of personal and professional burn out among these individuals and to identify the factors associated with this problem	Michael Johns
Otolaryngology	Ossoff	R.H.	Clinical	Study of voice related quality of life outcomes following endoscopic microlaryngeal surgery for non-neoplastic laryngeal lesions	To determine if voice related quality of life improves or deteriorates following endoscopic microlaryngeal surgery.	Michael Johns

Dept/Div	Researcher LastName	Initial/s	Research Type (Basic/Clinical)	Project Focus	Goal	Resident Assistant
Pediatric Surgery	Pietsch	J	Clinical	Enteral nutrition in children with cancer (in collaboration with the Children’s Oncology Group and the Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant Consortium)	To determine if enteral nutrition will reduce infectious and GI morbidity in children receiving chemotherapy or BMT
Pediatric Surgery	Neblett	W	Clinical	Evaluation of treatment outcomes in infants undergoing repair of CDH while on ECMO	To elucidate factors which might be used in developing an algorithm for selection of timing of repair, to achieve optimum outcome in children requiring ECMO support due to respiratory failure secondary to CDH	Mark Earl

Dept/Div	Researcher LastName	Initial/s	Research Type (Basic/Clinical)	Project Focus	Goal	Resident Assistant
Plastic Surgery	Shack	R.B.	Clinical	An examination of Sentinel Node Mapping patterns before and after augmentation mammoplasty	To examine whether the 3 differing surgical approaches to implant placement alter lymphatic drainage patterns	Marcia Spear
Plastic Surgery	Shack	R.B.	Clinical	Chemically Assisted Capsulectomy following augmentation mammoplasty	To examine whether introduction of MESNA facilitates capsulectomy and reduces the re-occurrence of capsular contracture	Marcia Spear
Plastic Surgery	Wolfort	S	Clinical	Quantitative evaluations of sensation, gait and balance in diabetic subjects with and without diabetic foot wounds who are candidates for a Tarsal Tunnel Release due to Type II Diabetes and Peripheral Neuropathy	To conduct an outcome study of the effect of tarsal tunnel release using the Pressure Specified Sensory Device	Andrew Zwyghuizen
Plastic Surgery	Wolfort	S	Clinical	Quantitative evaluation of loss and return of sensation following augmentation mammoplasty and reduction mammoplasty	To evaluate the sensory outcomes following various surgical approaches to breast augmentation or reduction mammoplasty	Andrew Zwyghuizen
Plastic Surgery	Wolfort	S	Clinical	Coordination and development of an interventional approach to minimize the occupational problems encountered by instrumental musicians	To document problems in instrumental musicians at the Blair School of Music and to minimize their performance difficulties through interventional approaches.	Andrew Zwyghuizen
Plastic Surgery	Barton	R	Clinical	Accrual of a cohort of Stevens Johnson Syndrome patients with age, sex, and race matched control subjects for a longitudinal study comparing their genetic differences.	To gain an understanding of the genetic factors that may determine why patients are susceptible to development of Stevens Johnson Syndrome	Marcia Spear
Plastic Surgery	Shack	RB	Clinical	Mentor Adjunct Study Protocol for silicone gel-filled mammary prosthesis	To examine the safety and efficacy of silicone breast implants in women undergoing reconstructive breast surgery	Marcia Spear
Plastic Surgery	Nanney	LB	Basic	Evaluation of the interaction of the 4 ErbB receptor forms and their ligands during healing of human burn wounds	To couple laser capture microdissection techniques with real time PCR to understand the EGF receptor axis during wound repair	Lillian Nanney
Plastic Surgery	Nanney	LB	Basic	Assessment of gene expression changes during early and late stages of wound repair in human wounds.	To utilize microarray analysis to understand the sequence of gene expression events that characterize normal wound repair.	Lillian Nanney
Plastic Surgery	Nanney	LB	Basic	Modulation of porcine wound repair using a strategy of overexpression of various forms of the EGF receptor	To use adenoviral assisted delivery to transfect porcine wounds with an overabundance of receptor forms to modulate and improve wound repair	Lillian Nanney

Dept/Div	Researcher Last Name	Initial/s	Research Type (Basic/Clinical)	Project Focus	Goal	Resident Assistant
Urologic Surgery	Matusik	R.J.	Basic	Proposal characterizes a probasin-directed large T antigen transgenic model for prostate cancer.	To identify genes involved in prostate cancer progression.
Urologic Surgery	Matusik	R.J.	Basic	Proposal will study the mechanism that controls prostate-specific gene expression	To identify key factors involved in organ development and androgen action.

[ VUMC Home | About VUMC | Health Care Services | Schools | Research | Search ]

Copyright © 2004, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
URL: http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/surgery/research-section.htm
For More Information: <Section Web Support>
Last Modified: 4/5/2004
<webmaster@www.mc.Vanderbilt.Edu>