Resident, Trainee, and Student Grants and Awards

Dr. Yuanjia Zhu, is a resident in Stanford’s Integrated Cardiothoracic Surgery Training Program, a second year PhD student in the Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University, and a postdoctoral research fellow in Dr. Joseph Woo's laboratory

The Paul C. Samson Resident Prize is awarded to a resident who is the presenting author of a podium presentation at the annual Meeting. The selection of the winner is determined not only by the resident's presentation, but also by the manuscript itself.

The Vivien Thomas Early Career Investigator Award acknowledges the accomplishments of early career investigator members of the Council on Cardiovascular Surgery and Anesthesia (CVSA) who are focusing on fundamental and applied surgical research.

The award is named in honor of Vivien T. Thomas, a key player in pioneering the anastomosis of the subclavian artery to the pulmonary artery. The surgical work he performed with Dr. Alfred Blalock paved the way for the successful outcome of the Blalock-Taussig shunt in 1944.

Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship by the National Institutes of Health  

Funding Year: 7/1/2021-6/30/2023

During this fellowship, Dr. Zhu proposes to study the ex vivo biomechanics of mitral valve repair operations for mitral valve prolapse followed by in vivo validation using large animal cardiac surgery models.

Funding Years: 2019 – 2021

Yuanjia was awarded the Thoracic Surgery Foundation Resident Research Fellowship for her project titled "Bioengineered Autologous Cytokine-eluting Arterialized Conduits using Tri-Layered Cell Sheet Technology." This two-year grant is administered through The Thoracic Surgery Foundation. The proposed project focuses on bioengineering a novel, autologous, cytokine-eluting, arterialized vessel conduit using cell sheet technology. Yuanjia proposed to characterize in vivo efficacy and investigate the impact of the bioengineered conduit in a rodent hindlimb ischemia model. The results from this study may guide researchers and healthcare providers towards a novel, translatable revascularization therapy.

Award Year: 2020

The TSDA Benson R. Wilcox Award was established in 2010 to acknowledge the best scientific abstract submitted by a cardiothoracic surgery resident to The Society of Thoracic Surgeons Annual Meeting. This annual award honors Dr. Wilcox’s many contributions to the TSDA and thoracic surgery education.

Dr. Zhu received the award for Bilateral versus Single Internal Mammary Artery Grafts for Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery in the United States – A Study of Over One Million Patients

Dr. Shin Yajima is a postdoctoral research fellow in Dr. Woo’s lab and a board-certified attending cardiothoracic surgeon in Japan. His research focuses on the application of nanotechnology to myocardial regeneration, and he is currently working with stromal-cell derived factor incorporated nanoparticles in a rat ischemia myocardial reperfusion model to exhibit attenuated myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury.

The Society of Thoracic Surgery (STS) Research Award designation is given to the highest-ranking Thoracic Surgery Foundation (TSF) Research Award application. The award supports original research efforts and the work of early-career cardiothoracic surgeons who have completed their formal training, and who are seeking initial support and recognition for the research program.

Project: “Stromal cell-derived factor 1a-encapsulated nanoparticles specifically target the ischemic myocardium and attenuate ischemic myocardial injury”

Funding period: April 1, 2023-March 31, 2025

Hye Sook is an aspiring surgeon-scientist and currently taking her gap year before medical school. She graduated from UC Berkeley with dual degrees in Molecular and Cell Biology, B.A., and Nutritional Sciences, B.S. Since 2019, she has been working as a research assistant in Dr. Yasuhiro Shudo’s and Dr. Joseph Woo’s labs, focusing on developing stem cell sheet therapy for ischemic heart failure and studying natural cardiac regeneration across various mammalian species, respectively.

Awarded for: Best speaker in the Early Career Investigators Lightning Talks at the 4th Annual CVI Early Career Research Symposium

Project title: Naturally aligned cell delivery platform to limit post-infarction ventricular remodeling and improve ventricular function by enhancing mature neovascularization

Cell-based interventions to treat ischemic heart diseases are often limited in their therapeutic efficacy due to poor cell localization and microvascular malperfusion. We demonstrated that a scaffold-free, bi-layer cell sheet of human endothelial progenitor cells and smooth muscle cells not only improves cell engraftment in vivo but limits post-infarction ventricular remodeling and improves ventricular function by promoting angiogenesis in an athymic nude rat model of myocardial infarction.

• Stanford Cardiovascular Institute Undergraduate Summer Research Program

Award year: 2020

Research Project: Understanding Heart Valve Dysfunction in Patients with Single Ventricle Defects. This will be accomplished through the use of ex vivo models, in vivo animal models, and sequencing of human tissue.

Lye-Yeng Wong is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Stanford Cardiothoracic Surgery Department and a general surgery resident at Oregon Health & Sciences University. Dr. Wong will pursue a fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery, with the aim of cultivating an academic thoracic surgical oncology career.

Dr. Lye-Yeng Wong's abstract for the 2023 Society of Thoracic Surgeons Annual Meeting, "The Impact of Age and Need for Emergent Surgery in Paraesophageal Hernia Repair Outcomes," was awarded the Richard E. Clark Memorial Paper for General Thoracic Surgery. This recognition represents top-rated abstracts at the meeting. Its full manuscript was recently accepted by The Annals.

Funding year: Annually, given at graduation ceremonies for general surgery chief residents

The General Surgery Resident Teaching Award recipients are chosen by Stanford medical students who vote for the best teaching resident in surgery over the past year.

Graeme Rosenberg just completed training at Stanford General Surgery Residency. He is beginning as the Stanford Cardiothoracic Surgery - Thoracic Surgery Track Fellow this summer. Dr. Rosenberg is dedicated to treating patients with thoracic malignancies and is interested in investigating innovating ways to improve surgical education, coaching, and performance.  

Ioana Baiu, MD, MPH, will be graduating the Stanford General Surgery Residency Program and will remain at Stanford as a clinical fellow in thoracic surgery starting in August 2022.  Dr. Baiu has a strong interest in medical education and has been recognized for her outstanding teaching and mentoring skills on several occasions by the Stanford medical students.

A.J. Pedroza is a fourth year Cardiothoracic Surgery resident currently completing an NIH-funded research fellowship in the Thoracic Aortic Research Laboratory under the direction of Dr. Michael Fischbein. His research focuses on dynamic gene expression changes driving thoracic aortic aneurysm development and progression using genetic mouse models and human surgical tissues.

Funding Years: July 2020–June 2022

The Ruth L Kirchstein Postdoctoral Individual National Research Service Award is a federal award granted through the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to enhance the research training of promising postdoctoral candidates who have the potential to become productive, independent investigators in scientific health-related research fields.

The two-year grant provides funding to continue research on developmental contributors to aortic smooth muscle cell pathology leading to aortic aneurysm development in Marfan syndrome, an inherited connective tissue disorder.

Dr. Alex R. Dalal is a fifth-year Integrated Stanford Cardiothoracic Surgery resident currently completing an NIH funded research fellowship in Dr. Michael Fischbein's lab.  Alex will be studying the molecular mechanisms of aneurysm formation in genetic aortopathies, such as Marfan Syndrome and Loeys-Dietz Syndrome. Alex previously spent two years working in Dr. Fischbein's lab as a lab tech prior to medical school and is excited to return to the lab as a postdoc.

Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Individual National Research Service Award

Funding Years: July 2021-July 2023

Aortic root aneurysm, or weakening and dilation of the wall of the aorta, leads to dissection or rupture and reduced life expectancy in patients with Marfan syndrome unless early surgical repair is performed. Mechanical forces generated between the extracellular matrix and vascular smooth muscle cells are transduced into biological intracellular signals that contribute to aneurysm development and progression. Understanding the embryologic specific cellular response to a remodeled extracellular matrix will identify new and novel therapeutic targets to slow or prevent aneurysm formation in Marfan syndrome.

• Stimulating Access to Research in Residency (StARR) NIH R38

Funding Year: 7/2020-7/2021

This is a twelve-month grant that will cover eighty percent of Alex's PGY salary during his postdoctoral research under the mentorship of Dr. Michael Fischbein. Alex is currently studying the molecular mechanism of aneurysm formation in Marfan Syndrome. Single cell RNA sequencing of Marfan Syndrome and Wild Type littermate control mouse aortas revealed a unique sub-set of smooth muscle cells, term fibroblast like smooth muscle cells (FL-SMCs), that are spatially unique to only the Marfan Syndrome ascending aorta. This grant proposal investigates the embryologic origin of the FL-SMCs and aims to determine the pathologic significance of FL-SMCs in Marfan Syndrome aneurysm development.

Joshua Orrick is currently a premed student studying human biology in Orange County, California. His concentration of study is neurobiology and neurological disorders; however, he has developed an overarching passion for studying cardiothoracic-related diseases through his time in Dr. Michael Fischbein's lab. In his spare time, Josh is on the Stanford varsity men's water polo team, and his team won a D1 NCAA national championship last season.

Funding Year: 2020

Josh is conducting his honors thesis on the effects of angiotensin-related drugs such as Losartan on Marfan's pathology within the Fischbein lab. He is currently being mentored by Dr. Michael Fischbein and Dr. Christiana Iosef.  The aim behind his project is to stop or slow the dilation of the aorta in Marfan Syndrome (MFS) patients with the use of these drugs. The mechanisms by which angiotensin-related drugs act to stop/slow aortic dilation are largely unknown; thus, Josh plans to use MFS smooth muscle cells derived from MFS patient-induced pluripotent stem cells to model and record the mechanisms.

Dr. Terrence Pong is a PGY3 in the Stanford Integrated Cardiothoracic Surgery residency program. Terrence completed his doctoral degree in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics (MEMP) at the Harvard-MIT program in Health Sciences and Technology (HST). His previous research has focused on implantable biosensors for the detection of cardiac biomarkers and the modulation of nitric oxide synthase for cardiac protection. He is currently conducting  his postdoctoral research in Dr. Anson Lee's Cardiac Surgical Arrhythmia Research Lab.

Funding Year: 8/2019 – 8/2020

Terrence's research interests focus on the design and engineering of surgical tools for advanced diagnostics and treatment of cardiac arrhythmias. Funding from the Stanford Biodesign award supports the development of a novel "System for transmural ablation of atrial fibrillation." In addition, Terrence will be conducting research on Experimental Heart Models of Ventricular Tachycardia through the generous support of the Steven M. Gootter Foundation.

Dr. Tomi Obafemi is a PGY2 (in Research) in the Stanford Integrated Cardiothoracic Surgery residency program. Tomi was born in Nigeria and split his childhood between New Zealand and the U.S. He loves sports and being part of a team environment. Professionally, he is interested in Adult Cardiac Surgery, Surgical Education, and hopes to one day be part of a global surgery effort. He is currently conducting research in Dr. Anson Lee's Cardiac Surgical Arrhythmia Research Lab.

• Stimulating Access to Research in Residency (StARR) R38 resident research grant

Funding Year: awarded in 2021 and will cover one year

Using a human model, a langendorff apparatus is utilized to reanimate an explanted heart. We are able to capture high resolution spatiotemporal electrograms in normal sinus rhythm and ventricular tachycardia using novel flexible electrode arrays. Furthermore  electrograms compared to areas of fibrosis captured with high-quality ex-vivo cardiac magnetic resonance imaging. Tissue is also obtained to demonstrate the distribution and expression of connexin-43 in healthy and fibrotic cardiac tissue.

Kevin Cyr is a 4^th year medical student at Stanford University School of Medicine. His research is focused on developing new surgical tools for the treatment of atrial fibrillation and other heart rhythm disorders in the laboratory of Dr. Anson Lee. These efforts have focused on translational research which brings 3D printing technologies into the operating room to create patient-specific surgical devices. His work to develop 3D printed medical devices has been recognized with grants and awards from the Society for Thoracic Surgery, Stanford Medical Student Research Symposium, Stanford Cardiovascular Institute., and Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign.

• Looking to the Future Scholarship

Funding Year: 2019

• Grand Prize Stanford Medical Student Research Symposium   

Funding Year: 2019

• Boring Trust iHeart Research

Funding Year: 2018 – 2019

• Stanford Biodesign NEXT Fellow
  

Funding Year: 2018

• MedScholars Medical Student Research Fellowship

Funding Year: 2018 – Present

Cayley Bowles is currently a PGY-2 in the Stanford Integrated Cardiothoracic Surgery residency program and will be joining Dr. William Hiesinger's lab in July 2020. Cayley will focus on heart failure research using a variety of research methods. Her previous research has included differential equations-based models of infectious disease spread and computational models of the cardiovascular system. Cayley also completed a master's degree in epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health where she learned statistical techniques for outcomes research.

Funding Year: 7/2020-7/2021

Cayley was fortunate to receive funding from the Stimulating Access to Research in Residency (StARR) NIH R38 grant through the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute. This grant will fund her first research year and was awarded for a research project involving protein engineering to promote healing after myocardial infarction. Cayley will also plan to explore the use of machine learning to predict right heart failure in LVAD patients.

Nick Quach is a rising third-year medical student at Stanford working within Dr. William Hiesinger's lab.  Nick’s current research works to develop novel chemokine therapeutics for cardiac recovery in ischemic cardiomyopathy.  Additionally, Nick is working to create a new machine-learning based diagnostic tools for predicting postoperative outcomes.

Nick was awarded the Boring Trust Research Award in Sept 2019 by the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute to create new therapeutics by reengineering the angiogenic chemokine SDF-1a using computation methods.

Funding Year: 2019-2020

Nick was awarded the MedScholars Medical Student Research Fellowship in June 2019 by the Stanford School of Medicine to create new therapeutics by reengineering the angiogenic chemokine SDF-1a using computation methods.

Julian is a first-year medical student interested in a career in surgery, who joined the William Hiesinger Lab as a medical student researcher in 2020. He graduated from the University of Southern Maine with a degree in Biology in 2016 and spent the next three years volunteering and teaching English in Ecuador before joining the entering class of 2019 at Stanford Medical School.

Funding year: Summer 2020

Julian was recently awarded a Discovery Grant through the Medical Scholars Research Program, a program supporting medical student research since 1980. He will be supported by the grant during the summer of 2020, during which time he will be investigating the immunomodulatory role of the chemokine SDF-1α in the acute inflammatory response to ischemic coronary syndrome alongside the dedicated team of scientists at the William Hiesinger Lab.

Maedeh is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Huang's lab.  The aim of her research is to study the effects of extracellular matrix-mediated effects on endothelial-to-mesenchymal transition, with potential applications for improving the efficacy of vascular graft patency.

The AHA Postdoctoral Fellowship is awarded to enhance the integrated research and clinical training of postdoctoral applicants who are not yet independent. The applicant must be embedded in an appropriate research group with the mentorship, support, and relevant scientific guidance of a research sponsor. Recognizing the unique challenges that clinicians, in particular, experience in balancing research and clinical activity, this award mechanism aims to be as flexible as possible to enable applicants to develop academic careers in research alongside fulfilling clinical service commitments. (January 2019)

Alex is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Huang's lab.  The aim of his research is to elucidate the negative effects of chronic nicotine exposure on autologous induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).   He studies the effect of nicotine exposure on endothelial differentiation of iPSCs for therapeutic treatment of peripheral artery disease. Additionally, he develops microchips for optimizing microenvironments for mesenchymal stem cells and skeletal muscle myoblasts.

The aim is to evaluate the study the effect of nicotine in the angiogenic capability of induced pluripotent stem cell derived endothelial cells for treatment of peripheral arterial disease. (August 2019)

Funding Years: 2019-2020

Awarded for "Deciphering Genotype-Phenotype Association in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy”

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is amongst the most common inherited cardiac diseases, often leading to sudden cardiac death, and heart failure. Current treatments only improve symptoms without addressing the underlying disease cause, while cardiac transplantation remains the only available therapy. Numerous mutations, predominantly in sarcomeric genes, have been implicated in HCM. Inheritance of HCM causing mutations occurs in either an autosomal dominant or in a sporadic pattern. Whole-exome sequencing identified HCM-causing mutations in the thin filament protein Tropomyosin 1 (TPM-1). My preliminary data show that patient-derived TPM-1 induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (iPSC-CMs) recapitulate the HCM clinical phenotype as they exhibit delayed afterdepolarizations (DADs) and triggered activity. Until now there is no available iPSC-CM disease model for TPM-1 induced HCM. In Specific Aim 1, I propose to use iPSC-CM, derived from HCM patients carrying different TPM-1 mutations and healthy controls, to create an ex vivo platform for the study of this form of cardiomyopathy. Furthermore, to obtain novel pathogenetic insights into the molecular processes and signaling pathways of TPM-1 induced hypertrophy, I will perform comprehensive and multi-disciplinary functional assays (Ca imaging, atomic force microscopy, multi-electrode array, and patch clamping among other) as well as transcriptomic analysis (RNA-seq) of single cell TPM-1 iPSC-CM. In addition, the anti-arrhythmic effects of various drugs will also be examined in TPM-1 iPSC-CM. In Specific Aim 2, to reiterate the observed HCM clinical phenotype, I will generate isogenic iPSC lines containing TPM-1 mutations, using clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 technology. Single cell isogenic iPSC-CM will be subjected to comprehensive functional and transcriptomic characterization to further investigate the pathologic phenotype in the absence of genetic variability. Isogenic patient-derived iPSC-CM will enable future studies towards the identification of therapeutic agents for hypertrophy without the need for patient recruitment. Overall, the proposed studies aim to generate a novel platform for disease modeling and therapeutic applications for TPM-1 induced cardiomyopathy. State-of-the-art methodologies will be used to answer previously intractable questions, elucidate the molecular mechanisms of HCM, and potentially lead to novel therapeutic targets.

Jennifer is a Research Scientist expert in the field of Cardio-Immunology, focusing on developing novel assays to unravel the interactions between inflammatory pathways and cardiovascular diseases (such as heart failure, pulmonary hypertension and cardiovascular aging).

Funding Years: 2020–2021

Awarded for "Modulating genome architecture to understand the pathogenesis of Dilated Cardiomyopathy"

LMNA is one of the most frequently mutated genes in dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). LMNA-related DCM is an incurable disease characterized by cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. How mutations in LMNA lead to DCM is poorly understood, translating to the lack of disease-specific therapies. Our overarching goal is to uncover how LMNA mutations induce DCM and thereby develop new tailored therapies for LMNA-related DCM through leveraging new technologies. The LMNA gene encodes A-type lamin proteins, a major component of the inner nuclear lamina. Lamin A plays a critical role in nuclear function via interactions with chromatin at specific regions called lamina-associated domains (LADs). Recently, we have successfully modeled LMNA-related DCM using induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (iPSC-CMs) and shown that lamin A mutations disrupted LAD integrity and dysregulated critical signaling pathways that govern calcium homeostasis and cardiac rhythm. Preliminary data implicated a dysregulation of the PRRX1 gene downstream of disrupted LADs. Based on these findings, we propose the central hypothesis that a LMNA mutation impairs specific LADs and destabilize the chromatin organization, resulting in aberrant expression of genes critical to cardiac physiology. In this project, we aim to delineate the role of chromatin architecture in LMNA-related DCM. We will also develop a novel strategy to modulate the local genome organization. We will utilize a new CRISPR-mediated technology (CLOuD9) to selectively modify the PRRX1 locus and restore the endogenous genome organization to the healthy state. In summary, by combining new technologies, including patient-specific iPSC models of LMNA-related DCM, genomics, epigenomics, and high-throughput functional assays, our study will provide an unprecedented understanding of the relationship between alteration of chromatin architecture and DCM, paving the way for the development of novel mechanism-based therapeutics.

Ashley Y. Choi is a resident in the Integrated Cardiothoracic Surgery Program. She graduated from Johns Hopkins University and completed her medical training at Duke University School of Medicine.

The North American Aortic Valve Repair Symposium (AVRS) awarded Dr. Ashley Choi a scholarship to attend the 5th annual conference on September 9-10, 2022. The purpose of the scholarship for trainees was to learn from experts from around the world about various surgical techniques for aortic root and valve reconstruction. The symposium featured videos of surgical procedures, presentations of clinical data and outcomes, panel discussions with experts in the field, and hands-on and interactive sessions.