2023
Congratulations to all the lab members for presentations at the Heart Valve Society 2023 meeting in Malaga. Excellent showing with 3 oral presentations, 4 poster presentations, and 1 faculty talk. 
We are very pleased to have received a single ventricle research fund grant from Additional Ventures. This $660k grant focuses on developing a fetal model of single ventricle defect by in utero under loading of the left ventricle.
The Georgia Bio awarded our spin off, Nyra Medical, with the  Golden Helix award for the significant financing that we raised at the end of 2022.
Dr. Padala accepts the significant event of the year award from the Emory University Office of Technology Transfer. This award recognizes the successful technology spin off from our laboratory, Nyra Medical, which closed $20 million in Series A financing in November 2022.


This award marks the end of this technologies 10 year journey at Emory, from its inception in our laboratory, through prototyping and refinement, and preclinical validation.

​Co-founders of Nyra Medical include Dr. Padala, Dr. Eric Sarin - our clinical collaborator, and Dr. Kirthana Suresh - a PhD graduate from our laboratory.

2022

** PUBLICATION ALERT**

Dr. Padala participates in the NIH workshop defining the "Research opportunities in the treatment of mitral valve prolapse", which is not published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 
Nyra Medical, the spin off based on technology invented in our laboratory, raises $20M Series A financing. Dr. Padala continues as the CEO of the company, advancing the technology to first in human studies.
** PUBLICATION ALERT**

Congratulations to first author Jahnavi Mudigonda on publication of this work in Materials Today Bio " In vivo efficacy of a polymer layered decellularized matrix composite as a cell honing cardiovascular tissue substitute
​https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590006422002496?via%3Dihub
Congratulations to all of the wonderful research scholars who had presented their work at the American Heart Association 2022 annual meeting.

Onohara D - left ventricular hypovolemia secondary to in utero mitral valve inflow obstruction in a late gestation fetal lamb model

King C - Transapical mitral valve and left ventricular reshaping to repair FMR in a dilated ventricle.

Gaidulis G - Adjunctive papillary muscle approximation with undersizing mitral annuloplasty improves mitral valve mobility and biomechanics to repair FMR
Dr. Michael Silverman completes his 2 year research sabbatical with us and goes back to his general surgery training at Emory.
Congratulations to Dr. Kirthana Suresh for successfully defending her PhD thesis and joining MiRus Medical as a R&D engineer to advance their transcatheter aortic valve replacement system.
Congratulations to Dr. Dongyang Xu for successfully defending his PhD thesis and joining Peijia Medical in their head quarters in Suzhou, China as a clinical engineer supporting their transcatheter aortic valve program.
Congratulations to Gediminas Gaidulis, for acceptance of abstract titled " Computational modeling of mitral valve for functional mitral regurgitation repair pre-surgical planning", for oral presentation at the Biomedical Engineering Instrumentation Summit in Boston, in July 2022. 
Congratulations to Dr. Jahnavi Mudigonda for completing her post doctoral fellowship with us and joining Intuitive Surgical as a clinical research scientist.
​Congratulations to Gediminas Gaidulis and Kirthana Suresh for acceptance of their abstracts for oral presentations at the World Congress of Biomechanics, to be held in June 2022. 

(1) A dynamic leaflet augmentation to treat functional mitral regurgitation: in-vitro efficacy studies.

(2) Cardiac leaflet enhancer vs. MitraClip for the repair of functional mitral regurgitation - computational analysis of systolic leaflet and chordal stresses.


New manuscript from our lab on a biohybrid material for use as a cardiovascular tissue substitute, is published in the Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine. This study was led by post doctoral fellow, Dr. Jahnavi Mudigonda, and supported by a post doctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association.
Congratulations to Dr. Daniella Corporan for completing her PhD work and post doc fellowship with us. She will be joining Abbott Vascular as a Senior Clinical Research Scientist in the Structural Heart Group.

2021

New publication from the lab in the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. Congratulations to Dr. Kono for leading this study.
Congratulations to Dr. Mudigonda for acceptance of her abstract on a hybrid material for use as a cardiovascular tissue substitute, for presentation at the ISACB 2021 meeting in Atlanta.
Tawfik Hussein, joins the laboratory to pursue his PhD studies on cardiac biomechanics. He is a first year biomedical engineering graduate student.
Congratulations to all the laboratory members for acceptance of abstracts for presentation at the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association. This is the first year, we have 100% acceptance of our abstracts, and we look forward to presenting our 8 talks at this conference.
We are excited to collaborate on this exciting new technology development R01 to develop a multi-functional, intra-coronary catheter for imaging blood flow dynamics in atherosclerotic plaques, led by Dr. Brooks Lindsey. Read more here: https://bme.gatech.edu/bme/news/lindsey-receives-25m-develop-interventional-cardiology-imaging-system
New year, new research direction, new funding: We are thrilled to announce award of funding for two projects by the Additional Ventures Innovation Fund at Emory/GT to develop two new functional therapies for children born with single ventricle defects: (1) development of a transcatheter valve repair device for atrioventricular valve regurgitation in Fontan patients; (2) development of a self powered piggy back heart for patients with failing fontan circulation.
Congratulations to Daniella Corporan PhD, for acceptance of our abstract titled " Adverse mitochondrial structural changes occur early after onset of mitral regurgitation despite prolonged preserved ejection fraction" for presentation at the 101st annual meeting of the American Association of Thoracic Surgeons.

2020

Congratulations to Kanika Kalra MD, for winning the Cardiovascular Surgery and Anesthesia Council (CVSA) resident research award at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2020 for the abstract " Papillary muscle tip approximation in the repair of functional mitral regurgitation in a chronic swine model". PMT-A is a simple technique that is physiologically sound, and can treat FMR reproducibly and durably, without the need for replacement.
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Congratulations to Kirthana Suresh for passing her PhD thesis proposal in flying colors!

​Congratulations to Elorm Agra for passing his PhD thesis proposal!
Congratulations to Dongyang Xu, for acceptance of his first primary author manuscript on the ill effects of undersizing mitral annuloplasty on left ventricular mechanics in heart failure, to be published in the Journal of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery. 
Congratulations to Daniella Corporan for successfully defending her PhD thesis on the "Structural, mechanical and biological alterations of the left ventricle with chronic mitral regurgitation". She will be conferred a doctorate in biomedical engineering from Emory University and Georgia Tech at the end of the Fall semester. 

​You can view her thesis defense presentation at the link on the right.
New publication: Congratulations to Daisuke Onohara for acceptance of his new work on the therapeutic effect of restoring physiological oblong shape from a spherical shape in the failing heart, for publication in JTCVS
New publication: Congratulations to Daniella Corporan for acceptance of her new work on chronic changes in ventricular myocardium in the setting of mitral regurgitation, for publication in JTCVS.
Congratulations to Daniella Corporan for being awarded the 2020 Outstanding Translational Research Thesis from the Department of Biomedical Engineering
New publication: Congratulations to Alan Amedi and Daisuke Onohara for acceptance of their new work on the inadequacy of annular approaches to repair functional tricuspid regurgitation for publication in the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.
New funding:  " In-utero left ventricular filling and its impact on chamber growth and maturation: mechanistic insights into hypoplastic left heart syndrome" 
Congratulations to former research assistant, Josh Eskew, for completing his MD from Medical College of Georgia and matching into Orthopedic Surgery residency. We wish him the best and look forward to great things from him
Congratulations to freshman undergrad researcher, Hirschel Nambiar, for being awarded the Gibeling Research grant from the US Food & Drug administration
 Undergrad researcher, Sam Zhan-Moodie graduates from GT. Congratulations! She will be starting medical school in Fall 2020 and aspires to become a cardiac surgeon
Congratulations to Alan Amedi, research technician in our lab for his admission into the MD class of 2024 at Emory University
Congratulations to previous undergrad in our lab, JunSu Han for his admission into the PhD program in material science at UIUC
Michael Silverman MD, a general surgery resident at Emory University joins the laboratory for a 2 year research sabbatical. 
Elorm Agra, wins the David Frakes endowed travel scholarship from the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering. Congratulations!
Daniella Corporan wins first prize at the Georgia Tech career, research and innovation development conference. Congratulations!
Funding* Jumpstart grant from Biolocity and Additional Ventures to develop functional therapies for single ventricle patients
Tech transfer* NYRA Medical licenses the cardiac leaflet enhancer technology developed in our laboratory
​Kanika Kalra MD selected as a finalist for the Walton Lillehei resident competition at the AATS meeting
Publication alert* Left ventricular thinning and dilatation to mimic heart failure, in the ASAIO journal
Publication alert* New model of mitral regurgitation with echo guided leaflet puncture, in the JOVE
Conference abstracts* Multiple talks accepted for presentation at the 100th AATS annual meeting in April 2020

2019

Happy Holidays!!!
Daniella Corporan receives a travel award at the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association
Trainees hard work is well represented at the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association
Elorm Agra, MD/PhD student in our lab receives the looking to the future scholarship from STS
Dr. Padala receives the inaugural innovation for impact award from the Emory University School of Medicine
Multiple presentations from the laboratory at the Transcatheter Cardiac Therapeutics 2019 meeting in San Francisco
Congratulations to Dongyang Xu for a successful PhD proposal on mitral valve repair
Dr.Padala receives news of his promotion to associate professor with tenure at Emory University
So proud of Ansley and Myritney, students from Lovett school for a successful internship with us
New collaborative R01 with Georgia Tech titled "Ultrasound guided robotically steerable guidewire for endovascular applications" was awarded
Feature piece on our laboratory as an interface between cardiovascular engineering and surgery, in the department annual report
Multiple presentations at the 99th annual meeting of the American Association of Thoracic Surgeons in Toronto. Congratulations to team!
New publication in JTCVS on the adverse impact of mitral regurgitation on remodeling of the ischemic left ventricle, from Daisuke Onohara MD PhD
Congratulations to Daniella for receiving an American Heart Association Predoctoral fellowship to study cardiac remodeling in mitral regurgitation
Congratulations to Jahnavi Mudigonda for receiving an American Heart Association postdoctoral fellowship

2018

Nov 2018: Our new work on the pathological remodeling of the mitral valve leaflets in response to abnormal mechanical stresses in the valve leaflets is now published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. This study culminates three years of work in a chronic heart failure model, and begins new directions linking valve biomechanics and valve biology after surgery.

Sept 2018: Our new work on activation of myocardial matrix metalloproteinases and their inhibitors from chronic volume overload from mitral regurgitation is now published in the American Journal of Physiology - Heart and Circulatory Physiology.

Congratulations to PhD student, Daniella Corporan and senior research associate Daisuke Onohara for this excellent work.


​Sept 2018: Our new work on use of expanded polytetrafluoroethylene sheets for complex mitral valve repairs in chronic 6-month in vivo studies is now accepted for publication in the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. This work demonstrates that ePTFE sheets of specific thickness are well suited for mitral valve repair, without evidence of stretching or fatigue.
Aug 2018: Congratulations to Elorm Agra for passing his PhD qualifying examinations. Good job!
 Dr.Padala is appointed to two editorial boards of journals in cardiovascular disease
April 2018: Dr. Padala is appointed to the editorial board of the journal of heart valve disease and as an associate editor to BMC cardiovascular disorders. 
Congratulations to Kirthana for winning the best moderated poster award at the Heart Valve Society meeting in New York
Apr 2018: Kirthana Suresh wins the best moderated poster award at the Heart Valve Society meeting in New York. Her abstract was titled " A flexible posterior leaflet extending implant eliminates functional mitral regurgitation in a swine model". Congratulations for a job well done!
Our third R01 grant to develop a robotically steerable catheter for mitral valve intervention was awarded by NHLBI
Mar 2018: Our third R01 in collaboration with Jaydev Desai at Georgia Tech and Baowei Fei in Radiology was awarded today. This 4-year award will support the development of an image-guided, intravascular robotic system for mitral valve repair.
Dr. Padala to receive the 2018 Albert E. Levy award in the junior faculty division, the highest research honor at Emory

Feb 2018: Dr. Padala, was chosen to receive the 2018 Albert E. Levy research award from Emory University. This is the highest research honor awarded by the university  to its junior faculty. Read more below:
​
http://news.emory.edu/stories/2018/02/padala_levey_award/index.html
New publication on a multi-chordal apparatus for mitral repair
​Oct 2017: New manuscript accepted for publication in Innovations: technology and techniques in cardiothoracic and vascular surgery, on a multi-chordal apparatus for complex mitral valve repairs. 
Two new members join the structural heart research laboratory
Aug 2017: Dr. Jahnavi Mudigonda and Mr. Elorm Agra join SRIL. Dr. Mudigonda holds a PhD in Biomedical Devices from India, and will continue her work on new materials for heart valve replacement. Mr. Agra is an MD/PhD student at Emory University, who will be pursuing his PhD thesis on the biomechanics of mitral valve repair.
Our second NHLBI R01 grant awarded to the lab for developing a new transcatheter mitral valve repair technology
Aug 2017: The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute awarded our R01 titled "Transcatheter strategies for leaflet extension to treat mitral regurgitation". This 4-year award will be used to develop a novel transcatheter approach to extend the mitral valve leaflet shelf to repair primary and secondary mitral regurgitation.
Our first NHLBI R01 grant awarded to fund to investigate the biomechanical basis for failure of mitral repair surgery
​Aug 2017: The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute awarded our R01 titled " Novel therapeutic approaches to mitral valve repair in ischemic heart disease". This 5-year award will investigate the efficacy of a new biomechanically optimal mitral valve repair in pre-clinical studies and in a human trial. 
Dr. Padala received the inaugural Subramanian Innovation award from the International Society of Minimally Invasive Cardiothoracic Surgery

​June 2017: Dr. Padala received the inaugural Subramanian Innovation Award from the International Society of Minimally Invasive Cardiothoracic Surgery for presenting the " MitraPlug: transcatheter mitral leaflet extender". The award was presented at the 20th annual meeting of the society held in Rome in June 2017.
Two post-doctoral fellowships awarded to lab members by the American Heart Association
​June 2017: Congratulations to Daisuke and Alicja for receiving the American Heart Association post-doctoral fellowship grants. Both their applications got the best possible score and were ranked at 0.15 percentile.

Daisuke will investigate the effect of mitral regurgitation on left ventricular remodeling to heart failure, with a translational bend focused on ventricular reshaping as a surgical option to inhibit the remodeling

Alicja will investigate the process of pathological leaflet fibrosis after mitral valve repair in ischemic heart disease, with pharmacological inhibitors of TGF-beta as therapeutic targets.
Dongyang passes his PhD qualifying exams with flying colors
May 2017: Congratulations to Dongyang, for successfully passing the biomedical engineering PhD qualifying exams in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering. He will now begin his PhD thesis work to investigate the impact of ischemic mitral regurgitation in accelerating heart failure. 
Daniella is selected to receive the Goizueta Foundation Graduate Fellowship
May 2017: Congratulations to PhD student, Daniella Espiritu, for being awarded the Goizueta Foundation Graduate fellowship. These fellowships recognize exemplary graduate students of hispanic/latino heritage enrolled at Georgia Tech.
Dr.Padala is appointed to the editorial board of the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery
Apr 2017: Dr. Padala is appointed to the editorial board of the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery of the American Association of Thoracic Surgeons. He will serve a three year term starting June 2017.

​Jan 2017: Our provisional patent US 13/978,904 was awarded by the United States Patent Office to Dr. Padala and Dr. Thourani. The patent protects design elements for a transcatheter device to repair mitral regurgitation.
Jan 2017: Congratulations to Alicja and Daisuke for acceptance of their abstracts for oral and poster presentations respectively at the Annual William Wood Research Symposium in the Department of Surgery at Emory.
Jan 2017: Congratulations to Daniella, Daisuke and Alicja for acceptance of their abstracts for oral presentations at the annual meeting of the Heart Valve Society in Monte Carlo, Monaco. 

​Dec 2016 : Patent # US 9,510,948 titled "Systems, Devices and Methods for Repair of Heart Valve Lesions" was awarded by the United States Patent Office to Dr. Padala. The patent protects design elements for transcatheter repair of primary and secondary mitral regurgitation. 

​Nov 2016: Daisuke & Alicja received awards at the annual Cardiovascular Surgery & Anesthesia Council (CVSA) dinner at the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association, in New Orleans. Daisuke was recognized as a finalist for the Vivien Thomas Young Investigator Award and was a winner of the top 10 abstract travel award from the American Heart Association. Alicja was honored for winning the top 10 abstract travel award. Congratulations to both, well done!




​Aug 2016: Josh completes his productive stint in our laboratory and moves to Savannah to begin medical school. We wish him the very best, and his energy will be sorely missed in the lab.
Aug 27, 2016: Our transcatheter solution to mitral regurgitation - the "MitraPlug" is accepted for oral presentation in the Interventional Innovations and Best New Technologies session at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) conference in Washington DC in October 2016. Our successful pre-clinical studies with this technologies will be presented for the first time at this meeting.
Aug 10, 2016: Congratulations to Daniella and Kirthana for selection of their abstract for poster presentation at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) conference in Washington DC in October 2016.

​Aug 10, 2016:  Congratulations to Alicja for having her abstract accepted for an oral presentation in the "Mitral Valve: Innovations Galore" session at the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association in Nov 2016 in New Orleans. 


​Aug 10, 2016:  Congratulations to Daisuke for being selected as a finalist for the Vivien Thomas Young Investigator Award. He will compete for the award at the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association in Nov 2016 in New Orleans. 
Aug 2016: Claire, Nick, Caleb, Seth and Therese, high school students from the Lovett school complete their summer internship in the laboratory. 
July 18, 2016: Our laboratory signed an agreement with CryoLife to study and advance new regenerative biomaterials for use in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. 
​

​July 1, 2016: The laboratory receives a translational research grant from the Coulter Foundation to conduct critical preclinical studies on our mitral repair technology to advance it towards clinical use. Dr.Padala will be the PI, Dr. Sarin the co-PI and Mr. David Stern will act as the R&D mentor. [read more...]


​May 21, 2016: Congratulations to Daniella for successfully passing her PhD qualifying examinations. Well done! 

​March 23, 2016: Congratulations to Weiwei for matching into pathology residency at Boston University Medical Center. Weiwei has been with our laboratory since its inception and has been a steady contributor to almost every project and has had a very productive stint with us. We wish him the best in Boston, and will send him off with a snow shovel!

March 23, 2016: Congratulations to Apoorva Girish for matching into the general surgery residency training program at University of Connecticut. In her relatively short stint in the lab, Apoorva's work focused on the hemodynamics of type B aortic dissection. We wish her the best in her career progression!
Oct 27, 2015: Our project " MitraCath", to develop a new suture less pediatric mitral valve has been accepted for funding by the Atlantic Pediatric Device Consortium, funded by the FDA. This earmarks our first foray into developing pediatric cardiac devices and pediatric bioengineering. (Full report here) 
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​March 2015: Dr.Padala received the William Parmley prize from the American College of Cardiology for our recent publication in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (Pictured - (Left) Dr. Robert Guyton MD; (Middle) Dr. Muralidhar Padala PhD; (Right) Dr.Valentin Fuster MD) ( Full report here )

Our laboratory is show cased in the Annual Report of the Emory University Department of Surgery.( Full report here)

​2014 American Heart Association funding recipients with Nobel Laureate Dr.Robert Lefkowitz at the Annual Scientific Sessions in Chicago


Management of the Genuine Auto Parts company along with the board members of the Carlyle Fraser Heart Center visit our laboratory