What's New in Thoracic Transplant?

Konrad Hoetzenecker, MD PhD is a member of the surgical faculty of the Department of Thoracic Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and the Surgical Director of the Vanderbilt Lung Transplant Program. Besides lung transplantation he is specialized in airway surgery and extended thoracic procedures. Dr Hoetzenecker has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles and is an editorial board member of the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery and the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation. Dr Hoetzenecker has been awarded several prizes and grants including the Graham Memorial Traveling Fellowship from the American Association of Thoracic Surgery.

Dr. Christine L. Lau, MBA is the Dr. Robert W. Buxton Chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the Chief of Surgery at the University of Maryland Medical Center. She specializes in all aspects of general thoracic surgery including lung cancer, mediastinal diseases, benign lung and esophageal disease, esophageal cancer and lung transplantation. Dr. Lau is board certified in general and thoracic surgery. Dr. Lau received her medical degree from Dartmouth Medical Center in Hanover, NH. She received numerous awards while she was there, including being elected to Junior AOA and receiving the Janet M. Glasgow Memorial Award for graduating 1^st in her medical school class. She subsequently did her internship and residency in general surgery at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC. After completing her general surgery training, she went to Washington University in St. Louis, one of the premier lung transplant programs in the world and spent a year doing a lung transplant fellowship, as well as her fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery which she subsequently finished in 2005. Dr. Lau had an academic appointment at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, MI as an Assistant Professor of Surgery prior to joining the University of Virginia.  She has consistently been voted a Top Doctor in Thoracic Surgery and Cancer. In 2006, she was awarded the John Kirklin Fellowship given by the AATS. In 2008, she was awarded a K08 from the NIH to study mechanisms of chronic rejection in lung transplants. In 2015 she received a R01 from the NHLBI to continue her research in lung transplantation. Dr. Lau serves on numerous national committees and boards, including being a Director of the ABTS, a Director for the AATS, and a member of the Leapfrog Expert Panel.  She is also is a member of the Surgery, Anesthesia, and Trauma Study Section at the NHLBI.