The Department of Surgery hosted the ninth annual Edmond T. Gonzales Jr. Surgical Research Day May 18 at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women providing a forum for researchers across the department to showcase their work.
This year 110 abstracts were submitted for review, 11 of which were chosen for oral presentations and 99 were accepted for poster presentations. This year eight students vied for the Best Presentation award and three faculty members were chosen to present their research.
The 2018 keynote speaker was Chandan Sen, who holds various roles at the Ohio State University Wexler Medical Center, including the John H. and Mildred C. Lumley Chair in Medicine, professor and vice chair of research in the Department of Surgery, associate dean of Translational Research, director of the College of Medicine, director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine and Cell-Based Therapies and executive director of the Ohio State Comprehensive Wound Center. Sen spoke about the regenerative medicine frontier and the reprogramming of tissue function in vivo.
Awards presented at the event were the Samuel Stal Research Award for outstanding research by a resident or fellow, the Research Mentor Award, and Best Oral Presentation and Best Poster Presentation.
- The Samuel Stal Research Award was presented to Dr. Rodrigo Zea-Vera in Congenital Heart Surgery. The award is named after Dr. Samuel Stal, former chief of Plastic Surgery at Texas Children’s.
- Pediatric Surgeon Dr. Sundeep Keswani was honored with the Research Mentor Award. The award is given on an annual basis to honor a Department of Surgery faculty member who serves as a research mentor through career development, professional guidance or cultivation of research interests.
- Best Oral Presentation award was given to Urology Fellow Dr. Jeffrey White. He presented his work on the mining of CNV databases discovering a role for RBFOX-2 in penile development.
- Best Poster award was given to researcher Jennifer Brown from otolaryngology for a poster on the implementation of a tracheostomy educational program for outpatient otolaryngology nurses.
Recipients of the 2018 Clayton Awards, former known as Surgical Seed Grant Awards, were announced as the grand finale of Texas Children’s Hospital Surgical Research Day. This grant program, funded by the Department of Surgery, allows surgery researchers to generate the preliminary data necessary for National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant applications and other extramural funding. 2018 Clayton Awards recipients are as follows:
Dr. Arvind Chandrakantan, Anesthesiology
Obstructive sleep apnea in vitro: A novel approach for cellular and molecular discovery
Dr. Erin Gottlieb, Anesthesiology
Antithrombin Levels in Neonates and Young Infants Undergoing Congenital Heart Surgery
Dr. Julie Hakim, Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology
Understanding the Role of Estrogen in Vaginal Scar Tissue Formation
Dr. Brian Kelley, Neurosurgery
Molecular and Structural Mechanisms of Diffuse Axonal Injury
Scott Manson, Ph.D., Urology
Myofibroblast-Targeted Therapies for Renal Fibrosis in Obstructive Uropathy
Dr. Bindi Naik-Mathuria, Pediatric Surgery
Promoting Safe Firearm Storage in Households with Children
Dr. Irene Tung, Ophthalmology
The Effect of Oral Omega-3 Supplementation in Children with Meibomian Gland Disease and Chalazia
Xinyi Wang, Ph.D. Pediatric Surgery
The Role of Hyaluronan in Renal Tubulointerstitial Fibrosis
