Dr. Coopersmith directs the Emory Critical Care Center and is vice chair of research for the Department of Surgery. He is one of the top investigators of sepsis and shock in the country, and was a member of an international task force of experts that redefined the terms "sepsis" and "septic shock" in 2016. In 2020, he was one of 29 experts from across the country who led efforts to establish the NIH's Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Treatment Guidelines.
Dr. Ford is the scientific director of the Emory Transplant Center. She is a leading researcher of the mechanisms of T cell responses in transplantation and immunosuppression, and is focused on developing third-generation costimulation blockers for better and less toxic immunosuppression. Her work is funded by various federal, foundation, and industry grants. She often collaborates with Dr. Craig Coopersmith on investigations of aspects of the immunological host response in sepsis.
Dr. Guyton was chief of the Emory Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery from 1990-2017. He is the current director of the Cardiothoracic Research Laboratory (CTRL), Carlyle Fraser Heart Center. The CTRL conducts basic and translational research in cardiac surgery, cardiothoracic diseases and treatment; trains basic science and clinical investigators in cardiothoracic research and therapeutics; and develops innovative strategies and devices to treat cardiothoracic diseases.
Dr. Kooby is an international leader in minimally invasive pancreatic and liver surgery. His research focuses on multi-center, collaborative clinical outcomes studies involving gastrointestinal malignancies. He co-founded an active multi-institutional consortium for studying pancreatic tumors and pancreatic surgery, with Emory taking the lead on several high-impact studies. He also collaborates with experts at the Rollins School of Public Health and the Georgia Institute of Technology on database and translation research.
Dr. Larsen has made seminal contributions to understanding the immunologic mechanisms of transplant rejection and immunologic tolerance. With his long-time collaborator Dr. Thomas Pearson, he started a program that played a pivotal role in developing a new class of immunosuppressive drugs known as costimulation blockers. One such drug is belatacept, a less toxic alternative to standard immunosuppressants that is now FDA-approved for kidney transplant recipients.
Dr. Linden is the surgical director of ECMO for Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston. Her primary clinical and scholarly interests are in neonatal surgery, minimally invasive surgery, surgical critical care, ECMO, and global surgery with a particular concentration on quality and safety and improving outcomes. She has spent time abroad in Rwanda and Uganda training local surgical postgraduates and performing disparities research involving access to surgical care in low-resource settings.
Dr. Maithel is the scientific director of Emory's Liver and Pancreas Center and director of the Surgical Oncology Research Fellowship Program. His expansive research interests include clinical investigation and outcomes analysis of patients treated for tumors of the liver, biliary tract, pancreas, and stomach; and identifying tumor specific molecular biomarkers as predictors of outcome and chemotherapeutic response for tumors of the liver, biliary tract, pancreas, and stomach.
Dr. Padala directs the Structural Heart Disease Research and Innovation Lab. Using novel animal models to manipulate mechanical forces, his research involves the development of new surgical techniques and surgical and interventional devices and implants for cardiac surgical applications, as well as investigations of their effect on cardiac tissue remodeling and adaptation. His lab has developed new devices that can alter the disease state or tissue adaptation to these mechanical forces.
Dr. Patzer directs the Emory Health Services Research Center, a joint initiative of the Emory departments of medicine and surgery. She is leading the expansion, implementation, and promotion of health services research that is designed to deliver better patient outcomes and make clinical care delivery perform at the highest quality and value, not only at Emory, but as a paradigm for clinical/research institutions nationwide.
Dr. Paulos is the director of translational research for cutaneous malignancies at Winship Cancer Institute and has a substantial research portfolio. The objective of her work is to develop novel T cell-based therapies for patients with melanoma. Her laboratory seeks to identify mechanisms underlying protective immunity in solid tumors, with an emphasis on adoptive T cell transfer (ACT) therapy, and has contributed significant insight into the various roles of how to mount T cell memory responses to tumors.
Dr. Sarmiento has developed unique techniques for laparoscopic-assisted formal liver resections, including the performance of laparoscopic hepatectomy using very small incisions. His current research includes studies of endocrine changes after pancreatic resection; evaluating the feasibility, costs, and outcomes of major laparoscopic liver resection; examining the impact of chemotherapy on biliary stents; streamlining bile duct repairs after iatrogenic injuries; and lowering readmission and ER visits after hepato-pancreato-biliary surgery.
As the vice chair of quality, patient safety and care innovation for the Department of Surgery, Dr. Sharma oversees various quality improvement projects across the department as well as its involvement with such organizations as the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program and the Georgia Surgical Quality Collaborative, a partnership of nine hospitals that is dedicated to improving clinical outcomes and reducing healthcare costs.
Dr. Smith serves as a trauma surgeon, emergency/elective general surgeon, and surgical critical care intensivist at Grady Memorial Hospital, and has a secondary appointment at the Rollins School of Public Health. She is an advocate for injury and violence prevention for under-resourced populations through hospital-based intervention programs, and a member of such organizations as the Working Group on the Social Determinants of Health of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma.
