2022 Award Winners

Dr. Turashvili was nominated for the paper entitled: Endometrial stromal sarcomas with BCOR internal tandem duplication and variant BCOR/BCORL1 rearrangements resemble high-grade endometrial stromal sarcomas with recurrent CDK4 pathway alterations and MDM2 amplifications. Published in the The American Journal of Surgical Pathology in August 2022. She is the senior author of this multicentric, collaborative cohort of 13 patients with endometrial stromal sarcoma. In this paper the group found that to classify these neoplasias as high or low grade, finding a BCOR internal tandem duplication and variant BCOR/BCOR1 rearrangement aided in defining which sarcomas should be classified as high-grade.  

During the past year, Dr. Piantadosi was the senior author of 2 publications on recognizing SARS-CoV-2 mutations; one paper is published in Virus Evolution and a second in the New England Journal of Medicine. In the paper published in Virus Evolution, her group collected samples from the Emory Healthcare System Hospitals and sequenced the spent samples. They defined the mutations that have been introduced in the State of Georgia by comparing their sequences to those published. Then they correlated demographic and clinical data with the mutations found. Most sampled sequences likely stemmed from a single or small number of introductions from Asia three weeks prior to the state’s first detected infection. Their findings suggest that there was a failure to recognize infections locally. In the communication published in the NEJM, they presented how the SARS-CoV-2 evolved in five immunocompromised patients. Both papers can be considered translational research. 

Dr. Lubin has been an active member of faculty, resident and Head and Neck/Cytology fellow and instructor recruitment process. He has streamlined the Head and Neck resident experience by using study sets as well as every day cases, and objectively improved communication between faculty, residents and staff. He is spending hours at the microscope with trainees going over cases and teaching sets, has created numerous educational activities, quizzes and videos on Canvas. He has involved several residents and fellows in research projects and presented abstracts and published manuscripts with trainees as first authors. He has recently started a new Tuesday noon “Interesting Case” conference series, which has become very popular and is regularly attended by over 40 faculty and trainees.

Dan is active on social media and the “Case of the Week” he created for the Department’s Twitter account is one that has gotten the most views. “Case of the Week” tweets are educational posts where we [the department] share a case with a question. Two days later, we post the correct answer with feedback/explanation. This outward educational activity is enjoyed by many in the department and outside of the department which is demonstrated by almost 3,000 followers for the department's Twitter account. Lastly, also in the virtual space, Dr. Lubin has been helping with the MSCLE (medical student clinical laboratory experience) during the last 2 years. He created a short video about what happens in the frozen section room and has taken the time to facilitate discussions during the small group virtual sessions.  Dan has earned accolades for his teaching during the School of Medicine Educator Day. 

Dr. Smith has shown amazing citizenship which is demonstrated in 3 projects all including innumerable meetings in different committees and subcommittees: 

1. Electronic HLA cross-match program: In this project, Dr. Smith created a program that could manage the many PCR HLA results from recipient and donor so that a match could be found electronically as there is crucial short time from cadaveric organ harvest and transplant. His ability to create an algorithm and knowledge of the subject allowed for the successful competition of the project. Obviously, not only the HLA Directors appreciate his work, but the transplant teams at Emory and patients that have benefited from this impressive process improvement project. 

2. Positive Patient Identification (PPID): This project required Dr. Smith to provide information when the system decided that it was imperative to decrease the number of mislabeled specimens. Then he provided the necessary laboratory requirements for the project and was an integral part of the implementation team. Lastly, he was asked to monitor the consequences of the implementation and show the enormous decrease in mislabeled specimens. This project included all hospitals of the Emory system and had an impact in nursing, providers' and phlebotomists’ practices. 

3. Proof of concept of the digitalization of pathology glass slides: For this project Dr. Smith chose a cadre of pathologists that received both glass slides and their digitalized version to see the impact on diagnosis. As Dr. Smith says, “we need to first build the roads, before we can do anything else.” This project will enable other projects that will include image analysis and artificial intelligence to occur in the Pathology Department. The future potential of this project is enormous for our Anatomic Pathology faculty. 

These 3 projects do not include all his service for the conversion to Epic! 

Since Abby Goodman's departure in July 2021, Stewart has been our only in-house neuropathologist, which has necessitated a hefty clinical service workload. For FY23, Stewart was scheduled for 196 days (over 39 weeks) of clinical service, 11 weeks more than expected based on his FTE. All 196 days included being on night call for neuropath frozen sections, which happen regularly at all hours of the night. He also was on weekend frozen section call for 40 weekends, including six holiday weekends (including Christmas and New Years' Day). In addition, he is the only pathologist in our department who signs out SNP microarray cases, which often take 1-2 hours per case. And he is a valuable contributor to our autopsy service, particularly for post-mortem brain/CNS evaluations. 

Stewart is also a treasured contributor to our training programs and holds administrative roles as a Co-Director of our Residency Training Program and the Neuropathology Fellowship Director. The neuropath service essentially always has one or more trainees on service, which means that Stewart is teaching residents and fellows on most workdays. Recently Dr. Neill has restructured the neuropathology rotation by incorporating general frozen section experience into the rotation requirement. In addition, during the resident recruitment season, Stewart interviews almost every interviewee (>100 per year). He also spends significant time teaching for Emory's medical school. He is the point person for all medical students who rotate on pathology, and with the assistance of Ms. Lynn Hansen, they create the rotation curriculum for all medical student rotating at Emory Pathology.  

It is not surprising that Lin got nominated to both mentorship and service as he intertwines both effortlessly. Lin has played a central role in the education of all our fellows and residents as he is the Associate Medical Director for the laboratory. As the field of molecular diagnostics is constantly changing, he has mentored many techs, residents and fellows in validating many of our assays. His mentorship and service are evidenced by the following examples given by his nominators:  

Linsheng has been working with Dr. Cavalcante (phase I oncologist) and Pamela Moore (coordinator) in Winship Cancer Institute to transform the molecular tumor board (twice a month) into a CME conference (started in June 2022). Together, he and others have transformed the MTB into a great educational platform to help oncologist understand molecular pathology reporting and to ensure better patient care. 

Dr. Zhang is working with molecular genetic fellows to develop the 18 gene myeloid mutation panel for rapid detection of targetable gene mutations in myeloid neoplasms.  He also established an internal knowledge base to facilitate the interpretation of NGS-based cancer mutation profiling results. These tests comprise the bulk of molecular test menu at Emory Medical Laboratories. The establishment of these tests in-house has brought in extra revenue, reduced send-out cost, added to molecular correlation for different disease types, and building a molecular database for future research that is in-line with the research mission of our department.  

Lastly, Lin has been a pillar for the molecular laboratory as he has taken under his wing all our newest faculty members that sign out molecular testing showing them the “Emory/Winship way”. 

Ed works quietly behind the scenes and doesn't get recognized for all of the work that he does. He is always willing to answer questions and jump in and help in any way he can. 

I have worked with Ed since 2016 and he was one of the first pathology staff that I met. From that time, he's always been more than willing to help with any tasks under his umbrella. Not only is Ed sincere and easy to work with, but he is also a long-time dedicated staff member to the department and to Emory as a whole.  

What most people picked was: Long-time, exemplary service and dedication to the Department. 

Also, demonstrated commitment to the public good through the use of his/her/their talent or ability, and significant contribution to a Division, Department or School committee they serve.