The Cardiothoracic Research Laboratory (CTRL) of the Carlyle Fraser Heart Center is a program of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Department of Surgery, Emory University School of Medicine. The CTRL is located at Emory University Hospital Midtown, and its faculty investigators and support teams conduct translational research and develop new technologies to treat cardiovascular diseases. Under the CTRL umbrella, the laboratory houses programs in structural heart and valve disease, heart failure, and pediatric structural heart lesions.
The CTRL provides training opportunities at the interface of engineering, physiology, and clinical medicine for clinical trainees and medical students from the Emory School of Medicine, and PhD trainees from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Emory University and Georgia Tech.
Director of the CTRL
Muralidhar Padala, PhD
Dr. Padala is a tenured associate professor in cardiothoracic surgery at Emory University. As director of the CTRL, he is responsible for the program's scientific focus, operations, finances, fund raising, and corporate partnerships. Additionally, he leads the Structural Heart Research and Innovation Lab within the CTRL, where he investigates left-sided valvular heart disease and associated cardiac chamber failure.
He joined the CTRL as an assistant professor on a tenure track in 2010, was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2018, and assumed the directorship of the CTRL in 2022. He obtained his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Osmania University, India; his MS in Mechanical Engineering and PhD in Bioengineering from Georgia Institute of Technology; and completed a research fellowship at the Harefield Heart Science Center at Imperial College in London.
His work is funded through grants from the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, Coulter Foundation, Additional Ventures, and cardiovascular industry as well as support from the Carlyle Fraser Heart Center.
Additional Investigators
Robert A. Guyton, MD
Dr. Guyton is the distinguished Charles Hatcher Jr. Professor of Surgery and holds the Wilton Looney Chair in the Carlyle Fraser Heart Center. After his recruitment from Massachusetts General Hospital to Emory University in 1980, he established the CTRL, studying myocardial protection and recovery during cardiac surgery with funding provided by the National Institutes of Health. In 1990 he was appointed chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery.
Dr. Guyton recruited Dr. Jakob Vinten-Johansen to take over as director of the CTRL in 1996, and collaborated with him on investigations of the mechanisms of ischemic-reperfusion injury and the development of better cardioplegia solutions to mitigate such injury and improve recovery. Upon Dr. Vinten-Johansen's departure from Emory in 2014, Dr. Guyton reassumed directorship of the CTRL until 2022. He continues to maintain an active clinical practice at Emory University Hospital Midtown, and collaborates with Dr. Padala in laboratory research activities.
He obtained his BS in Biophysics from the University of Mississippi, MD from Harvard Medical School, and completed his surgical training in general and cardiothoracic surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and Children's Hospital Boston.
John W. Calvert, PhD
Dr. Calvert's laboratory is focused on determining different mechanisms of cardioprotection in the setting of acute myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury and heart failure. His primary projects are concerned with understanding the cardio-restorative potential of hydrogen sulfide for heart failure patients, evaluating the cardioprotective capabilities of nitric oxide, and examining the signaling mechanisms of exercise that can strengthen the heart against injury, disease, or malfunction.
Since he established his independent laboratory in 2008, grant awards from such organizations as the National Institutes of Health and the American Diabetes Association have supported Dr. Calvert's research, and his findings have been published in such high impact journals as Circulation, Circulation Research, and Atherosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology.
Dr. Calvert received his PhD in Physiology at Loma Linda University, and conducted a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular cardiology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.