Muralidhar Padala Selected for 2019 Innovation for Impact Award
AUGUST 2019
Muralidhar Padala, PhD, associate professor of surgery in the division of cardiothoracic surgery, is the inaugural recipient of the Emory School of Medicine Innovation for Impact Award for 2019. This award was established to recognize faculty inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs whose contributions resulted in a significant impact on human health or have the potential to be paradigm-shifting.
Dr. Padala directs the Structural Heart Disease Research and Innovation Laboratory, a collaborative effort between Emory cardiothoracic surgery and the Carlyle Fraser Heart Center at Emory University Hospital Midtown. His research team applies bioengineering principles to improve and optimize the durability and patient outcomes associated with cardiovascular interventions.
Dr. Padala's work has resulted in several devices and procedural methods for heart valve repair, including a new transcatheter technology to restore leaky mitral valves that does not require traditional open-chest, arrested-heart surgery; a surgical repair method that avoids unphysiological heart valve deformation that occurs from current approaches; and a technology for reshaping, destressing, and restoring function of an enlarged and failing heart.
Since joining Emory in 2010, Dr. Padala has cultivated a cadre of multidisciplinary associates and trainees, as well as steady funding from federal, foundational, and corporate sources to advance surgical and interventional therapies for valvular heart disease and heart failure. His close collaborations with cardiac surgeons at Emory and other institutions has enabled translation of laboratory research to clinical application in patients.
Dr. Padala will officially be presented with the award at the Celebration of Faculty Excellence on October 30, 2019.