Department Name

"Should surgeons do research?" queried Alden H. Harken, M.D., chairman of the department of surgery at the University of San Francisco - East Bay campus, during the UF department of surgery's annual Research Day, held on April 18. According to Harken, the answer is a strong yes; research is a vital component in the training of residents and fellows.

Harken, who presented as the Dragstedt visiting professor, argued impassionately that teaching residents to think, rather than just the facts, was essential to the training of a surgeon.

Research training helps provoke thought and requires surgical trainees to continually question what they are doing, and then seek to find the answers to those questions, Harken summarized.

The UF department of surgery's Research Day began four years ago as a forum to highlight the research accomplishments of its residents and faculty, as well as to foster collaborations within and outside the department. Residents and faculty are encouraged to submit basic science and clinical research abstracts to participate in the oral and poster presentations.

This year, the department had a record breaking, 34 abstracts submitted for consideration by the Research Advisory Committee, which is comprised of faculty predominantly from the Colleges of Medicine, Engineering, and Liberal Arts and Sciences. The committee selected the best seven abstracts for oral presentations, with the remaining research presented as poster presentations.

Award Winners

This year the Basic Science Abstract Presentation Award went to Go Watanabe, M.D., a post-doctoral associate in transplant surgery, for his presentation "HSP90 Inhibition Decreases Human HCC Xenograft Growth." Watanabe studied how an important plasma protein, HSP90, is used by liver cancer cells to help grow and proliferate. Robert Winfield, M.D., a general surgery resident, received the Clinical/Translational Science Abstract Presentation Award for his abstract "Early Resuscitative Practices Fail to Resolve Metabolic Acidosis in Morbidly Obese Trauma Patients." Using the database from the National Institutes of Health-funded Glue Grant project, Winfield revealed that obesity is associated with an adverse outcome from severe trauma, and may be explained by a differential response by these patients to resuscitation. Each winner received a prize of $500 for their award winning presentations.

The Research Career Development Award winners were Zhihua Jiang, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor of vascular surgery, and Emina Huang, M.D., an associate professor of general surgery. Designed to foster research projects deemed likely to receive external funding, the honor includes a $25,000 award to help seed laboratory work. Jiang and Huang's scores by the Research Advisory Committee were within 0.02 points of each other. Jiang studied the mechanisms of neointimal hyperplasia, and Huang, focused on the role stem cells play in the development of the colon cancer.

The Research Advisory Committee also found two other applications to be "highly innovative and novel, with considerable potential," and therefore they awarded Joseph Magliocca, M.D., an assistant professor of transplantation and Charles Klodell, M.D. an assistant professor of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, with awards for $12,500. Magliocca was exploring new approaches to improving the quality of donor livers for transplantation, while Klodell was examining the inflammatory response to ventricular assist devices.

One of the many highlights of research day is the "What's New in the Department" program. This year the department chose to highlight the work of Shands Burn Center director David Mozingo, M.D., and IT expert Sergei Kurenov, as well as Emina Huang, M.D., an associate professor of surgery, Philip Hess, M.D., an assistant professor in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, and Tomas Martin, M.D., an associate professor of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery.

"Research Day continues to be a valuable opportunity for the faculty and house staff (residents) to reflect on the outstanding progress the department has made over the past year in its research efforts," said Lyle L. Moldawer, Ph.D., professor and vice chairman of research for the department of surgery. "It promotes collaboration within the department and recognizes the considerable contributions that so many have made this past year."