Engineering meets cardiac surgery at Emory

Collaboration between engineering and surgery leading to innovative new technologies for heart surgery

AHA predoctoral fellowship to Daniella Corporan

Daniella Corporan wins AHA fellowship for her work on MR induced cardiac remodeling

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Abstracts accepted for presentation at HVS 2019 

Multiple abstracts and presentations accepted for the 5th annual meeting of the Heart Valve Society

AHA postdoctoral fellowship to Dr. Mudigonda

Jahnavi Mudigonda wins AHA fellowship for her work on a pediatric cardiac tissue replacement biomaterial

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 Abstracts accepted for presentation at AATS 2019 

Congratulations to Daisuke and Dongyang for abstract acceptances at AATS 2019

Daniella awarded a FOCUS grant award

Daniella Corporan receives a research grant from the Georgia Tech FOCUS program

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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:
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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. 
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​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