2020 ASTS Grant Recipients

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Ali Zarrinpar, M.D., Ph.D., Narendra Battula, M.D., and Hannah Burris, a first-year medical student, were awarded research grants from the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) during the 2020 annual meeting.

Dr. Zarrinpar, an associate professor in the Division of Transplantation, received the 2020 ASTS-Natera Research Grant in support of his research project, “Using Phenotypic Precision Medicine to Individualize Immunosuppression Based on Quantifiable Markers of Immune Response and Allograft Injury.”

Dr. Battula, an assistant professor in the Division of Transplantation, was awarded the 2020 ASTS-CareDx Faculty Development Grant to fund his research, “Innovative techniques for organ preservation, repair and reconditioning.”

Burris received a 2020 ASTS Presidential Student Mentor Grant to continue studying “Evaluation of statins as cancer chemoprophylactic agents in chronic liver disease.”​

For Zarrinpar, the award will fund his lab’s interest in individually tailored drug therapies.

“We will be collecting data from kidney transplant patients and examining how their response to immunosuppression medications vary from each other using a newly approved technology which measures how much injury their transplanted organ is sufferin,” Zarrinpar said.

Then, Zarrinpar and his team will analyze whether their drug regimens could have been changed to diminish that organ injury.

The American Society of Transplant Surgeons represents approximately 1,900 professionals dedicated to excellence in transplantation surgery. ASTS advances the art and science of transplant surgery through patient care, research, education, and advocacy.