News Story

Dr. Venu Pillarisetty, Professor of Surgical Oncology, and Dr. Lindsay Dickerson, General Surgery Resident Research Fellow, received a $400,000 grant from the Fibrolamellar Cancer Foundation for their project, “Therapeutic modulation of tumor–infiltrating T cell function in fibrolamellar carcinoma.” Fibrolamellar carcinoma (FLC) is a rare liver cancer affecting children and young adults without underlying liver disease.…

Welcome to our 2022 fall edition of Surgery Synopsis. This is our annual Education Issue and I couldn’t be more pleased to present a look at the past, present and future of Education in the Department of Surgery.

Heart failure and end stage lung disease are some of the most common causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Oxford Specialist Handbook in Cardiopulmonary Transplantation and Mechanical Circulatory Support is a multinational collaboration with highly revered and globally respected authors and editors to provide the most concise and practical guide to the practitioners on the…

Dr. Tam Pham, Professor & Chief of the UW Medicine Regional Burn Center at Harborview Medical Center, received the 2022 UW Alumni Early Achievement Award. This honor is for an alumnus or alumna who graduated within the last 20 years and has excelled in his or her career, making significant contributions to public health through…

Dr. Jay Pal, Professor and Associate Section Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery, was recently appointed to the Lester and Connie LeRoss Endowed Professorship in Cardiovascular Surgery. This Endowed Professorship was created in 1999 to help further work in developing equipment, procedures, training techniques and personnel to treat heart-related ailments. In January 2022, Dr. Pal started his…

The K. Alvin and Shirley E. Merendino Endowed Professorship was recently appointed to Dr. Kathleen Berfield, Associate Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Chief of Thoracic Surgery at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System. This Endowed Professorship was established in 2006 to provide support for the Department of Surgery in attaining its mission of resident…

Funds awarded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute   A University of Washington team, co-led by Project Leads Dr. Giana Davidson and Dr. David Flum, has been approved for a $2 million funding award by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to disseminate and implement research findings from the Comparison of Outcomes of Antibiotic Drugs…

Dr. Venu Pillarisetty, Professor, HPB Surgical Oncology, and his research team in the UW Tumor Immune Microenvironment (TIME) Lab published “Blockade of interleukin 10 potentiates antitumor immune function in human colorectal cancer liver metastases” in Gut. Co-first authors Drs. Kevin Sullivan and Xiuyun Jiang tested the therapeutic effect of blocking the immunosuppressive cytokine interleukin-10 (IL-10)…

Dr. Scott Brakenridge, Associate Professor, Trauma Burn & Critical Care, published “Evaluation of a Multivalent Transcriptomic Metric for Diagnosing Surgical Sepsis and Estimating Mortality Among Critically Ill Patients” in JAMA Network Open. This research shows a single genomic blood test can accurately diagnose sepsis and predict 30-day mortality in critically ill surgical patients. Dr. Brakenridge…