2023 Award Winners

For his paper entitled “Independent Validation of the International Grading System for Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma: A Single Institution Experience” which was published in Modern Pathology this year. Kartik was the last author but we must recognize that Dan Lubin was first author and from the department coauthors included David Behrman (a resident), Kelly Magliocca, and Judy Shi.

The research objective of the study was to validate a set of grading criteria for medullary thyroid carcinoma recently proposed by an international group but within a single institutional cohort.
This work is important as medullary thyroid carcinoma has not historically been assigned a grade at diagnosis. The lack of historical grading can lead to slow acceptance in the pathology community. Furthermore, the lack of external validity of the grading criteria within a single institution represents an unmet need and a barrier to usage in daily practice.
Particularly impactful results of the study include confirmation of the recently proposed international, multi-institutional grading criteria and deepening the scientific conversation and potential acceptance regarding grading of medullary thyroid carcinoma.
These research findings are directly clinically relevant as they improve understanding of medullary thyroid carcinoma as a medical condition and also enhance prognostication.

Dr. Viswanathan has been incredibly productive academically in his brief career at Emory. Beyond the volume of his output, the quality is undeniable. The collection of the material for this paper was performed when Kartik was in his first year of practice at EUHM. Additionally, collecting all the data points and keeping up with all the material was a labor of dedication and perseverance.

Dr. Maier is an accomplished clinical coagulation expert who has made highly significant observations and publications into the nature of COVID pathogenesis as it relates to hypercoagulability. Publications of clinical papers earned her the Department Award of Best Clinical Science Paper(s) in 2021.

In a remarkable demonstration of the role of a physician-scientist, she followed up these already significant clinical observations with a basic science study of the mechanisms involved. Published in Nature Communications 2023 Apr 4;14(1):1638, her senior author study Multiplatform analyses reveal distinct drivers of systemic pathogenesis in adult versus pediatric severe acute COVID-19, utilized multiple institutional collaborators and cutting-edge methods to show that COVID-related hypercoagulability is caused by physical and biochemical alterations to the blood vessel linings. Overall, these findings contribute to our understanding of how SARS-CoV-2 causes organ failure and death.

Dr. Benian’s commitment to medical and graduate education at Emory is sustained, effective, and significant. His teaching portfolio is both broad and deep, covering over two decades of Medical School lectures and histology labs, together with countless mentoring and teaching experiences in PhD programs in the Laney Graduate School (LGS). In addition to these teaching roles, Dr. Benian has a sustained record of educational leadership roles that include multiple terms on the Executive Committees of two different graduate PhD programs in LGS.

Guy is a MAJOR participant in both of the PhD programs. He is currently the course director for IBS546r, a weekly seminar course required for all our students. He introduces each student and does so in a characteristic manner such that students wait all year for their introduction. It has become a signature of our program, of Guy’s leadership in front of the entire program, and his ease in dealing with graduate students.

Dr. Benian is a committed and gifted speaker, teacher, and course director. He is one of the best speakers I have listened to. He is an engaging, inspiring, precise, and clear lecturer and educator. He receives outstanding reviews from the medical student body. In fact, he is one of our best-ranked teachers in Medical Cell Biology over the more than 20 years that he has contributed to our class.

Dr. Asakrah has been a great citizen in our department because:

• She has continued to work with the hematopathology team doing interpretations for all the studies needed for hematologic malignancies.
• She has joined the special coagulation team taking interpretation of coagulation panels and teaching residents one week a month.
• She has taken the lead in revamping the hematopathology portion of the CP didactics as well as taking the lead in the resident rotation in hematopathology and the molecular studies associated with hematological malignancies. Both activities should be considered improvements in the quality of education provided to our residents.
• Outside the Department, she has been involved in the Georgia Association of Pathologists (GAP) educational committee.
• For the International Laboratory Society of Hematology (ILSH), she has organized 3 CME courses related to anemia and platelet disorders.

In short, Dr. Asakrah deserves the Outstanding Citizenship Award based on her willingness to serve our patients, taking a lead in activities that improve the quality of teaching hematopathology to our residents, and participating in activities at GAP and ILSH.

Dr. Tom Schneider’s contributions to the molecular diagnostic service include:

• Establishing and leading our molecular pathology consensus weekly meeting team to better categorize gene variants from our targeted large NGS panel for solid tumor and hematologic malignancies, and bring forth consensus amongst the group.
• In addition to Dr. Schneider’s expertise in molecular diagnostics, he is a self- taught bioinformatician and programmer. Since joining our organization, he has streamlined the bioinformatics process for variant analysis and curation by writing Python codes. This has allowed us to better manage query multiple databases and helped all the molecular pathologists navigate the data abyss. A great example of innovation!
• He has managed the quality control of the laboratory pertaining to NGS testing, and quality of genomic data. He has single-handedly managed the bioinformatics pipeline and interface with EPIC reporting. This job was basically impossible to do with the allotted time and resources, and only a person with Tom’s improbable combination of scrappy resourcefulness, excellence in molecular pathology, technical skills, and sense of humor could have done it.
• He has been continuously monitoring the laboratory test quality, identifying best online databases, and improving the interpretation platform (GenomOncology Workbench) to deliver the best quality molecular reports to our clinicians.
• Dr. Schneider has shown unwavering dedication to enhancing the training process for residents and fellows in molecular laboratory rotations. He volunteered to help build an improved post-COVID era teaching process for residents in molecular genetics rotation.
• Dr. Schneider's outstanding rapport and collaboration with laboratory technical staff in the department have created a positive and cohesive work environment.

In the blood bank and HLA labs:

Tom has also delivered in our transfusion medicine and HLA services. In transfusion medicine, Tom has leveraged his transfusion medicine background and his deep knowledge of Epic from Mt. Sinai to deliver analytical insights to his colleagues, such as helping them quantitatively understand how missing historical blood types in Emory’s new blood bank information system impacted our staff (e.g. more collections) and patients (e.g. more sticks) and lobbying them to get the problem with historical types fixed. In HLA, Tom – without administrative support – figured out how to integrate a third-party virtual crossmatching application into clinical workflow, directly supporting Emory’s transplant mission.

Kelly has been a wonderful mentor, not just to me, but to so many others in the head and neck field. She’s a pillar in oral pathology and spending time with her has considerably helped me gain knowledge and build on my existing anatomic foundation. I’m truly grateful for the time I have spent learning from her. She has also helped with establishing the gross templates that residents and PAs rely on to ensure proper grossing and staging of head and neck malignancies.

She has been the Director of the rotation of Head and Neck for our pathology residents as well as Director of the Instructorship in Head and Neck pathology. She has published over 150 papers and abstracts many with trainees in both pathology and surgery serving thus as their mentor. However, and most importantly, she is currently the mentor of 3 of our young faculty that cover the Head and Neck service. The relationship she has forged with them is incredible. I can say with confidence that she is an Outstanding Mentor and deserves the Department Award fully.

Mazie was nominated because she participated in a process improvement that directly impacted the Division or Department. She has demonstrated commitment to the public good through the use of her talent or ability. She has creative suggestions and initiatives resulting in a successful service for the AP Division. She has long-time, exemplary service and dedication to the Department. And most importantly, always ready to help, always pleasant and professional, and responds promptly.