Surgery

Kenneth W Liechty

Division Chief, Pediatric Surgery
Member of the Graduate Faculty
Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Professor, Obstetrics and Gynecology
Professor, Pediatrics
Professor, Surgery
Vice Chair, Research
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 626-5555

Work Summary

Ken Liechty, MD, is the division chief of pediatric surgery in the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson’s Department of Surgery, as well as director of fetal medicine at Banner – University Medicine and surgeon-in-chief of Banner Children’s at Diamond Children’s Medical Center. Dr. Liechty received undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Utah. He went on to receive certifications in general surgery from the University of Pennsylvania (UPENN) and fetal and pediatric surgery from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). He stayed on as faculty at CHOP and UPENN for five years as a fetal and pediatric surgeon and basic science researcher. For the last eight years, Dr. Liechty was co-director of the Children’s Hospital Colorado Fetal Care Center and director of Pediatric Surgery Basic and Translational Research.

Research Interest

Dr. Liechty is internationally recognized for his clinical care in fetal medicine and his research in wound healing and regeneration. His laboratory, which has been continuously funded for the last 18 years, is the source of many patents and two companies. He has trained numerous medical students, residents and fellows who have gone on to academic surgical positions. Dr. Kenneth Liechty’s research has been focused primarily in the field of wound healing, the response to injury, and regenerative medicine, with an emphasis on elucidating the mechanisms involved in the regenerative response to injury in the fetus, the role of inflammation and oxidative stress in tissue repair, and the correction of abnormal healing in the adult. Dr. Liechty’s research team has pioneered the role of dysregulated microRNAs in the diabetic wound healing impairment, and the mechanisms of the correction of this wound healing impairment with stem cell and gene therapy. The Liechty research team is developing novel treatment paradigms using small molecule therapeutics including the microRNA conjugated nanoparticles, as well as stem cells and gene therapy strategies to promote healing and tissue regeneration in multiple tissues by modulating the inflammatory response, angiogenesis, the composition of the extracellular matrix, macrophage polarization, and progenitor cell content. Dr. Liechty’s research team has also developed and published the first report of mammalian cardiac regeneration in a large animal model following in utero myocardial infarction and has contributed significantly to the understanding of regenerative healing in the heart, skin and tendon, and the correction of impaired healing in diabetics. The goal of Dr Liechty’s research approach in regenerative medicine is to restore normal tissue architecture and function and to prevent the complications of impaired healing or scar formation after injury.

Carlos Zgheib

Associate Professor, Surgery
Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Associate Professor, Pharmacology
Member of the Graduate Faculty
Member of the General Faculty
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 626-5555

Research Interest

I am driven by a profound passion for pushing the boundaries of biomedical innovation, with a resolute dedication to addressing unmet medical needs and enhancing patient health. My extensive professional experience centers around the fields of Regenerative Medicine, Wound Healing, Acute Lung Injury, and Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Our pioneering work in the synergistic fields of biomaterials and nanotechnology, combined with miRNA therapy, is driving the development of innovative treatments for these inflammatory diseases, promising new avenues for improved patient care and well-being. My team is fully dedicated to pioneering groundbreaking advancements that will shape the future of medicine and positively impact the lives of countless individuals around the globe.

Geoffrey Gurtner

Department Head, Surgery
Professor, Surgery
Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Member of the General Faculty
Member of the Graduate Faculty
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 626-7754

Work Summary

A general and plastic surgeon, Dr. Gurtner was previously the Johnson and Johnson Professor of Surgery and Bioengineering (by courtesy) and Materials Science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. Dr. Gurtner is the author of over 300 peer-reviewed publications and is an Editor for two major textbooks in the field: Grabb & Smith’s Plastic Surgery and Plastic Surgery. Dr. Gurtner was awarded the James Barrett Brown Award in both 2009 and 2010 and has been named “researcher of the year” by the ASPS, AAPS and numerous other professional organizations. Dr. Gurtner runs an NIH and DoD funded laboratory examining how physical stimuli (mechanical and chemical) alter the human response to injury. This has led to the development of new technologies for which Dr. Gurtner has received 30 issued patents and over 100 patent applications. Dr. Gurtner has founded several venture backed start-up companies, including Neodyne Biosciences (www.neodynebio.com) and Arresto Biosciences, acquired by Gilead (NASDAQ:GILD) in 2011. Dr. Gurtner was also a founding partner at Tautona Group (www.tautonagroup.com), an early stage life science fund that has created novel biomedical technologies that have been sold to industry leading companies, such as Allergan (NYSE:AGN), Novadaq (NASDAQ:NVDQ), and Acelity/KCI (San Antonio, TX).

Research Interest

Dr. Gurtner graduated from Dartmouth College and earned his medical degree at the University of California, San Francisco. He completed his internship and surgical residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, followed by a plastic surgery residency at the Institute of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery at NYU Medical Center and a fellowship in oncologic microsurgery at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Dr. Gurtner is internationally recognized as a highly accomplished clinician and prolific researcher, author, inventor and entrepreneur. He has been awarded more than $27 million in federal research funding and holds 35 patents. He also has founded three venture capital-backed life sciences companies. “Research that never gets into the real world has limited impact, and making an impact requires translating research into real-world applications,” Dr. Gurtner said. “I look forward to contributing to an academic department of surgery that is already providing outstanding clinical care and education and is poised to become an engine to accelerate progress in the field of surgery globally through innovations in patient care, early-stage clinical trials, cutting-edge translational research, and eventually, startup creation and commercialization. I am by nature a builder, and I can’t think of a better place to help build a transformative department of surgery than at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson.” Dr. Gurtner has authored or co-authored 345 peer-reviewed articles and nearly 50 book chapters, and he has edited the two major textbooks in his field. He is the immediate past board president of the Wound Healing Society, the premier scientific organization focused on wound healing.

Marlys H Witte

Professor, Surgery
Professor, Neurosurgery
Professor, Pediatrics
Member of the General Faculty
Member of the Graduate Faculty
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 626-6118

Work Summary

Graduate of Barnard College, NYU School of Medicine, Internal Medicine Residency, UNC and Bellevue Hospital, Internal Medicine. Faculty: Washington University SOM and University of Arizona, Department of Surgery, 1969-present (Professor); Director, Student Research Programs, UA College of Medicine, 1982-present. Past-President (1985-1987) and current Secretary-General (1987-) International Society of Lymphology, Chief Editor, Lymphology. Mentored hundreds of students supported by NIH multi-institute training grants since 1982 to develop diverse research workforce pipelines. “Women in Medical Academia” in mid-1970's and service reflect a long-standing commitment to leadership training, equity, diversity, and disadvantaged populations. Educational activities have an overlying theme of “medical ignorance” – “what we know we don’t know, don’t know we don’t know, and think we know but don’t,” aiming to nurture “curiosity”.

Research Interest

Extensive international activities in clinical and basic lymphology – the study of lymphatics, lymph, lymphocytes, and lymph nodes in health and disease. Translational interests and contributions have spanned blood/lymphatic vascular endothelial cell biology and pathobiology in vitro and in vivo, hepatosplanchnic lymphatic/microcirculatory physiology, small animal models, in vivo lymphatic imaging, thoracic duct lymph drainage, lymphogenous cancer spread, and genomics/proteomics of lymphedema-angiodysplasia syndromes in man and experimental models, including defects, deficiency, and overexpression of human and murine lymphangiogenesis genes and their syndromic/phenotypic manifestations. Some of these findings are leading to new approaches to understanding and treating a variety of disorders arising in the lymphatic system or secondarily affecting its function.

Ekta Minocha

Postdoctoral Research Associate II
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
520-626-6410

Research Interest

My postdoctoral research is focused to develop a patient-specific, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) based in-vitro platform for Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH) disease modelling and examine the effect of extracellular matrix stiffness and microfluidic flow on the hepatic lipid metabolism in NASH. This study would enhance the physiological relevance for disease modeling and may provide a powerful non-invasive in vitro platform to study the disease pathogenesis and novel drug development. I am also working to generate bioartificial liver tissues, using iPSC-derived hepatic progenitors and acellular bio-scaffolds. In the line to generate bioartificial liver, I am also working to generate physiologically functional liver tissues/organoids from patient-derived iPSC. Our long-term goal is to generate liver tissues in the laboratory that can replace or repair the failing liver and abrogate the longer waiting times associated with organ transplantation.

Kellen Chen

Assistant Research Professor, Surgery
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 626-5555

Work Summary

I am an Assistant Research Professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. I was previously a Postdoctoral Scholar in Dr. Geoffrey C. Gurtner’s laboratory at Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Surgery, and I previously earned a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia and a BS in Bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley. I am highly interested in using my biomedical research and engineering skills to help develop and translate technology to the patient bedside and clinic. I studied and developed therapies to combat scar formation during wound healing or fibrous capsule formation during foreign body reaction (FBR) against biomedical implants. I have studied several translational preclinical animal models of scar healing after both open wound healing and after split thickness skin grafting. These studies have been published in high impact journals such as Nature Communications and Science Translational Medicine. At the University of Arizona, I am co-directing the research lab with Dr. Gurtner, in which we are continuing all of our previous research from Stanford here in Arizona.

Research Interest

Kellen Chen, PhD, is an assistant research professor in the Department of Surgery and Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arizona, College of Medicine – Tucson. Dr. Chen recently completed his postdoctoral research fellowship at Stanford University. He also previously received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia and earned his B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Chen co-directs the lab of Department of Surgery Chair Geoffrey Gurtner, MD, FACS. Together, they are currently studying therapies to improve outcomes after injury, skin grafting, chronic wound development, biomedical device implantation, and more. Among these many research avenues, Dr. Chen is particularly interested in the molecular and cellular drivers of fibrosis and regeneration across all organ systems, and he previously studied healing after myocardial infarction or Achilles tendon injuries. He is also currently working on obtaining FDA approval for a clinical trial to study pharmacological inhibition of mechanical signaling to accelerate healing of deep dermal injury

Dr. Chen has co-authored over 35 peer-reviewed publications and three book chapters, including first author publications in journals such as the Science Translational Medicine, Nature Communications, and PNAS. He has received a variety of awards, including the First Place Young Investigator’s Award from the Wound Healing Society and the Bernard G. Sarnat, MD, Excellence in Grant Writing Award from the Plastic Surgery Foundation. He is also a guest editor for journals such as Bioengineering and the Journal of Visualized Experiments. Dr. Chen is a member of the Wound Healing Society, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the Biomedical Engineering Society.

Ashwani Kumar Gupta

Research Assistant Professor, Surgery
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 626-7754

Work Summary

I am generating human embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells kidney and liver organoids. Further, I am investigating in vivo maturation and functional properties of organoids after implantation in rodents. I am also involved in rodent kidney and liver bio-scaffolds cellularization with stem cells derived progenitors, differentiation, and characterization of their physiological properties.

Research Interest

Ashwani Kumar Gupta, Ph.D., is a Research Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Arizona. Dr. Gupta’s research work has been focused to study kidney development and disease. Diseases of the kidneys are common and debilitating, often with limited treatment options. There is no curative treatment available for patients with chronic kidney diseases except renal transplantation. The lack of availability of transplant organs warrants research into technologies to understand how new kidney tissues can be generated. In recent years, generation of kidney organoids from stem cells has become an important technology, with potential translational applications. Dr. Gupta’s research interest is to understand the pathways that regulate kidney stem/progenitor cell self-renewal and differentiation, to generate transplantable kidney tissues. His current research is focused to generate 3D organs using de-cellularized organ scaffolds, physiologically functional kidney organoids with glomerular filtration apparatus and interconnecting nephrons with collecting ducts/ureter. Dr. Gupta’s primary goal is to generate transplantable kidney tissues for patients with end-stage renal diseases.

Klearchos K Papas

Professor, Surgery
Professor, Medical Imaging - (Research Scholar Track)
Professor, Physiological Sciences - GIDP
Professor, Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences
Professor, BIO5 Institute
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 626-4494

Research Interest

I have spent the past 21 years of his research career studying the properties of insulin-secreting tissue and their relationship to viability and function. I have worked on the development and validation of assays (especially ones based on mitochondrial function such as oxygen consumption rate) for the real-time, objective assessment of islet quality prior to transplantation. In particular the assay based on oxygen consumption rate has been recently validated based on its ability to predict diabetes reversal in mice and clinical human islet auto transplants in patients with chronic pancreatitis. I have used these assays along with engineering principles to optimize the islet transplantation process from pancreas procurement to islet infusion to the recipient. My group has also developed tools for the real time non-invasive assessment of pancreases and other organs during preservation, and i am actively involved in research for improvements in organ preservation technology aiming at extending the allowable time window from procurement to transplantation and the utilization of organs from expanded criteria donors without compromising clinical outcomes. I have had continuous NIH funding for the past 7 years in the area of pancreas preservation and I have spearheaded the effort for the development of humidified oxygen gas perfusion (persufflation) of the pancreas using novel technology for portable in situ oxygen generation from water via electrochemistry. I am also actively collaborating with leaders in the liquid perfusion field on NIH sponsored projects aiming at improving oxygenation.

Steven Goldman

Professor, Medicine - (Research Scholar Track)
Research Scientist
Professor, BIO5 Institute
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 626-2939

Work Summary

Our lab has a new treatment for heart failure. We have a biodegradable graft seeded with adult human cells that we put on the surface of the heart. The potential is to regenerate new heart muscle

Research Interest

Research in my laboratory over the last 30 years has focused on chronic heart failure (CHF), its pathophysiology and the development of new treatments for CHF. We have developed clinically relevant animal models of heart failure that allow us to explore the translational potential of new treatments. Our work initially examined the role of afterload reduction and neurohormal blockade. More recently we have been working with cell-based therapy for CHF using bioengineered scaffolds to prevent left ventricular (LV) remodeling and restore function in the damaged heart. Our most effective scaffold is a biodegradable vicryl mesh with embedded viable neonatal fibroblasts that secrete angiogenic growth factors. This patch increases myocardial blood flow, improves LV systolic function, and reverses LV remodeling if implanted at the time of an acute myocardial infarction. In CHF, this patch still improves myocardial blood flow but does not improve LV function or reverse LV remodeling. Thus, we have an effective delivery system for cell based therapy for CHF that increases myocardial blood flow and provides structural support for new cell growth. We are now focusing on seeding this patch with human inducible pluripotent stem cells in the cardiac lineage, the seeded cardiomyocytes align, communicate, contract in a spontaneous and rhythmic fashion. When implanted in rats with CHF, they improve LV function. We are exploring this patch seeded with human inducible cardiac pluripotent stem cells to treat patients with CHF. Keywords: induced pluripotent stem cells