UCLA DAPM 16th Annual Scientific Evening
May 13, 2024 | Soban Umar, MD, PhD
The UCLA Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine (DAPM) hosted its 16th Annual Scientific Evening on March 12, 2024, at Tamkin Auditorium in the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. The DAPM Scientific Evening is an annual symposium that highlights the academic achievements of our research fellows, resident physicians, fellow physicians, and medical students.
The event’s distinguished guest judge was Dr. Linda Demer, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine, Physiology and Bioengineering; Executive Co-Director, UCLA Specialty Training and Advanced Research (STAR) Program at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; and Vice Chair for Research Training, Department of Medicine at UCLA. Dr. Demer is a highly cited and established physician-scientist who is an expert in the field of cardiovascular calcification. She provided valuable and constructive feedback to the trainees. Other DAPM members who judged the presentations alongside Dr. Demer included Jae Woo Lee, MD, PhD, Jure Marijic, MD, Niko Massaly, PhD, Michela Ottolia, PhD, Robert Whittington, MD, and Tristan Grogan, MS.
This year’s Scientific Evening was one of the biggest ones yet. Oral and poster presentations encompassing a variety of topics in Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine were presented. Soban Umar, MD, PhD, Thomas M. Grove Endowed Chair and Associate Residency Program Director for Resident Research and Scholarly Activity, served as the event’s moderator.
The following were the awardees from the 2024 DAPM Scientific Evening:
| 1st Place Resident | Julia Klein, MD - Analysis of payments made by drug and medical device companies to anesthesiologists from 2017-2022 (Mentor: D. Saksa) |
| 2nd Place Resident | Stephanie Lam, DO - Perioperative fasting and clinical aspiration: A systematic review and meta-analysis of recent literature (Mentors: E. Livingston, M. Cannesson) |
| 1st Place Fellow | Khristine Ghemigian, MD, MHS - Low cardiopulmonary bypass flow relative to intraoperative pre-pump index is a risk factor for acute kidney injury (Mentor: L. Saddic) |
| 2nd Place Fellow | Steffi Chan, MBBS, MMed - Enhanced recovery after surgery in high-MELD patients undergoing liver transplantation: A single center evaluation (Mentors: M. Sheth, C. Myo-Bui) |
| 1st Place Research Trainee | Marina Angelini, PhD - Allosteric mechanism of CaV3.1 inhibition by Z944, a selective T-type channel antagonist in clinical trial for the treatment of essential tumor (Mentor: R. Olcese) |
| 2nd Place Research Trainee | Laila Aryan, PhD - Role of microRNA-98 in myocardial ischemia- reperfusion injury in late pregnancy (Mentor: M. Eghbali) |
| Best Overall Presentation and Recipient of the Leonard F. Walts MD Research Excellence Award | John Park, MD, PhD - Targeting LOXL2 rescues pulmonary hypertension-induced right ventricular failure (Mentor: S. Umar) |
Dr. Umar has mentored CA-3 resident physician John Park, MD, PhD (NIH T32 Fellow), who was awarded the Leonard F. Walts MD Research Excellence Award for his presentation on pulmonary hypertension-induced right heart failure, a fatal disease without a definitive cure. Dr. Park and his research team have identified LOXL2 as a potential therapeutic target for right heart failure. The mentor/mentee duo of Dr. Umar and Dr. Park have had the unique honor of receiving the prestigious Leonard F. Walts MD Research Excellence Award multiple times. Dr. Umar received this award four times as a resident from 2013-2016, and Dr. Park has received this award three times under Dr. Umar’s mentorship in 2021, 2022 and 2024.
The 2024 DAPM Scientific Evening was a resounding success and brought together DAPM members for an exciting and educational program, offering a glimpse into the future of innovative research conducted in the fields of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine by the next generation of clinicians and scientists in our field.
