In recognition of Researcher Appreciation Day, the Recognitions Committee at Emory School of Medicine sent out a call for nominations for researchers across the school who are making a difference in their field. Emory researchers were nominated by their peers and colleagues for their groundbreaking research, development of new technologies, and continued pursuit of novel and innovative ideas.
Read more about the amazing research happening at Emory below and join us in congratulating the 13 Department of Medicine faculty members who were honored!
Michael Connor
Division: Renal Medicine
Research Focus: Acute Kidney Injury
Dr. Connor has a new NIH small business grant partnering with a healthcare company to study blood pressure targets that best prevent acute kidney injury in septic shock.
Andre Holder
Division: Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine
Research Focus: Disease Prediction (sepsis)
Dr. Holder is a clinician scientist with multiple specialty backgrounds (emergency medicine, internal medicine, and critical care medicine). Through collaborations with colleagues in the Department of Biomedical Informatics, his primary areas of research focus is to successfully deploy advanced data-driven (machine learning) algorithms in clinical practice. His goals are to: (1) predict patient decompensation; and (2) predict the trajectory of complex syndromes like sepsis. Dr. Holder just received a KL2 career development award.
Dean P. Jones
Division: Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine
Research Focus: Redox Biology and Systems Biology
Dr. Jones has been leading redox biology research as well as clinical metabolomics research. His research has greatly impacted study fields including biochemistry, redox biology, food science, environmental science and pulmonary toxicology. His research of High Resolution Metabolomics significantly contributed to improve our understanding of metabolic responses in humans and animals to pathological conditions.
Jordan Kempker
Division: Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine
Research Focus: Health Disparities in Sepsis
Dr. Kempker’s research is aiming to determine the societal and geographic reasons for disparities in sepsis, a life-threatening condition.
Janet Klein
Division: Renal Medicine
Research Focus: Urine Concentration
Dr. Klein is studying the role of urea transporters and aquaporins in the urine concentrating mechanism. Her studies identified AMPK as a kinase that can mimic many of the effects of vasopressin. She is currently pursuing studies to determine if AMPK-activation may be a novel therapy for nephrogenic diabetes insipidus.
Rebecca Levit
Division: Cardiology
Research Focus: Stem cell therapies for heart repair
Dr. Levit is studying mechanisms to support stem cell delivery to the damaged heart and how stem cells might modulate the immune system. Her work spans from basic biology to device development for cell delivery. She just received her first R01.
Jeanie Park
Division: Renal Medicine
Research Focus: Neurovascular Control
Dr. Park investigates derangements of neurovascular control in patients at high cardiovascular risk, particularly those with hypertension, chronic kidney disease (CKD), and stress disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Molly Perkins
Division: General Medicine and Geriatrics
Research Focus: Aging, Personal Care Homes
Dr. Perkins has effectively partnered with the Atlanta community since her graduate school training in studying small board and care homes that allow older adults from low resource settings to age in their community.
Jyothi Rengarajan
Division: Infectious Diseases
Research Focus: Mycobacterium Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis causes millions of deaths each year, exhibits drug resistance, and has a higher burden among racial and ethnic minorities. Dr. Rengarajan is working to understand how this complex and deadly pathogen manipulates the host’s immune responses, with the goals of developing better diagnostic assays, therapeutics, and preventative strategies.
Marina Sorrentino-Hernandes
Division: Cardiology
Research Focus: Stroke
Dr. Sorrentino-Hernandes has a prestigious American Heart Association Scientist Development grant to study the role of the novel binding protein polymerase delta interacting protein-2 in stroke. Her work has uncovered a novel druggable target for two devastating diseases – stroke and sepsis.
Bashar Staitieh
Division: Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine
Research Focus: HIV Lung Disease
Dr. Staitieh is exploring pathways through which HIV increases the risk of both infectious and non-infectious pulmonary disease. In addition to his own cell- and animal-based models, he has been actively engaging in collaborations with clinical colleagues to advance a translational research agenda. Given the changing face of the HIV epidemic, both in the US and globally, this research has the potential to have profound impacts for millions of people with HIV.
Kiyoko Takemiya
Division: Cardiology
Research Focus: Developing Novel Bacterial Imaging Agents
Dr. Takemiya is developing novel PET and fluorescent small molecule imaging agents that are capable of detecting bacterial infections in vivo. This work has been successful through the small animal stage and is moving towards first-in-man trials.
Jinhu Wang
Division: Cardiology
Research Focus: Myocardial Development and Repair
Dr. Wang’s research has identified a very unique cell type in the developing heart that helps coordinate development of the heart muscle and vasculature. He has brought very unique zebra fish models to Emory that have the potential to provide a cross-cutting platform in many areas of development and cell-based therapies.
Be the first to comment on "2018 Researcher Appreciation Day"