Summer 2020

Read the summer issue of SurgeOnBrowse our summer issue, featuring some of the latest research and innovations, including the special section Responding to the Pandemic which highlights how the Department of Surgery and the Center for Cellular Therapy lead the charge to develop a COVID antibody test and how a team of innovators created 3D mask and cartridge system plans to answer the urgent need of the N-95 mask shortage. 

In our feature stories, we highlight a heart transplant patient and lung transplant patient during the early phase of the pandemic.Their journeys highlight how MUSC care teamswere ready and willing to go that extra mile to provide compassionate care for these seriously ill transplant patients whose families could not be by their bedside due to the COVID-19 visitor restrictions.

In the research arena, Shikhar Mehrotra, Ph.D. was named Co-Leader of the Hollings Cancer Center and awarded the Cecilia and Vincent Peng Endowed Chair in Melanoma and Cutaneous Oncology. Surgical oncologist, E. Ramsay Camp and Mark Rubinstein, Ph.D. received $900,000 in funding for a three-year oncology translational studies program concept from Merck to do a Phase II study that potentially can offer a new treatment for pancreatic cancer patients. Aaron Lesher, M.D. MSCR received a prestigious Mentored Patient - Oriented Research Career Development Award, also known as a K23, from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). And, Hongjun Wang, Ph.D. was invited by the NIH to serve as a permanent member of the Cellular Aspects of Diabetes and Obesity Study Section, Center for Scientific Review.

The Department of Surgery is delighted to recognize and honor two pediatric cardiothoracic surgeons: Robert M. Sade, M.D.,whose vision and remarkable generosity provided the ability to establish the Robert M. Sade, M.D. Endowed Chair in Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, and Scott Bradley, M.D., a gifted surgeon and inaugural chair holder of the Robert M. Sade, M.D. Endowed Chair in Pediatric Cardiac Surgery. Throughout their careers, both have garnered international recognition for their contributions to the field of surgery and their patients have expressed their deepest appreciation over the years. MUSC and our department are so fortunate to have both on our faculty.