Research Opportunities
Cedars-Sinai offers a wide variety of opportunities in clinical and basic sciences. Research varies from clinical outcomes studies and trials to basic science benchwork in the laboratory. Below is a list of faculty surgeons and staff physicians who seek medical student involvement in their research:| Philip Fleshner, MD | Colorectal Surgery |
| Nicholas Nissen, MD | Hepatobiliary Surgery, Liver Transplantation |
| Ali Salim, MD | Trauma Surgery, Organ Donation |
| Shirin Towfigh, MD | Hernia Surgery, Laparoscopic Surgery, Surgical Education |
| Gordon Wu, PhD | Transplant Immunobiology |
| John Yu, MD | Neurosurgery |
Philip Fleshner, MD, FACS, Division of Colorectal Surgery
Clinical Interests: Inflammatory bowel disease, colon cancer, anorectal disorders
Research Interest: Predicting surgical outcomes in patients with ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease
Brief Description of Research: Clinical research. You will be involved in clinical outcomes studies focusing on patients with inflammatory bowel diseases, such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease
Contact Information: Email, 310-289-9224
Nicholas Nissen, MD, FACS, Division of Liver Diseases & Transplantation
Clinical Interests: Liver surgery, Pancreas surgery, transplantation surgery
Research Interest: Outcomes research from pancreatic diseases, carcinoid, and neuroendocrine tumors
Brief Description of Research: Clinical research. You will be involved in studies on the morbidity and outcome of pancreatic resections. Also, you may choose to study the outcome of carcinoid and neuroendocrine tumor patients after treatment via a multidisciplinary approach.
Contact Information: Email, 310-423-2641
Ali Salim, MD, FACS, Division of Trauma Surgery & Surgical Critical Care
Clinical Interests: Trauma surgery, surgical critical care
Research Interest: Trauma surgery outcomes, organ procurement in the ICU
Brief Description of Research: You will be involved in local and national clinical database research regarding topics in outcomes from traumatic injuries.
Contact Information: Email, 310-423-8986
Shirin Towfigh, MD, FACS, Division of General Surgery, Center for Minimally Invasive Surgery
Clinical Interests: Hernia surgery, emergency surgery
Research Interest: Surgical education, hernia surgery, skills education, surgical infections, clinical trials, emergency surgery
Brief Description of Research: Surgical education, especially skills education, has risen to be among the top priorities of general surgery residency. In addition, medical student education in skills is of growing interest. You will be involved in developing, implementing, and/or evaluating a skills curriculum for students and residents.
Hernia surgery has best outcomes when performed by specialists in the field, i.e., herniologists. You will be involved in outcomes research in hernia surgery, especially for infected or otherwise complicated hernias.
Multiple clinical trials are currently under way testing surgical devices, antimicrobials, and other pharmaceuticals for their efficacy in the surgical diseases. You will be involved in the process of clinical trials protocols, enrolling patients in Phase II or Phase III clinical trial, and following patients during their enrollment period, checking for outcomes, adverse events, and so on. By the end of your experience, you will have in-depth knowledge of what it takes to develop and carry through a clinical trial.
Contact Information: Email, 310-423-8353
Gordon Wu, PhD, Transplant Immunobiology
Clinical Interests: Transplantation immunobiology, Immunological monitoring of pre- and post- transplant patients.
Research Interest: (1) Allograft fibrogenesis. (2) B cell production of alloreactive antibodies and T cell regulation. (3) Liver cirrhosis.
Brief Description of Research: The overall goal of this basic research project is to define the B cells that participate in memory responses to allogenic sensitization. This project involves use of a variety of investigation means, including transgenic mouse model of HLA sensitization (skin grafting), immunological characterization of alloreactive antibodies (Flow-cytometry, CDC assay, flow-PRA assay), and phenotypic definition of the B cells and T cells (qPCR, phenotyping with antibody markers). The summer student will be assigned to a sub-project and complete the project with assistance from other lab members.
Contact Information: Email
John Yu, MD, Department of Neurosurgery, Comprehensive Brain Tumor Program
Clinical Interests: Brain tumors, Immunotherapy
Research Interest: Brain tumor immunotherapy, clinical trials, development of bone marrow derived neural stem cells for neurologic disorders and targeting cancer stem cells. There is a particular need in our ongoing nanotechnology projects.
Brief Description of Research: Recently, we have developed antioxidant polymers which can be used as antioxidant polymeric therapeutics and as starting material for the preparation of antioxidant nanospheres. The antioxidant drug and/or delivery systems are oxidative stimuli-responsive and thus the therapeutics in the delivery systems will be released specifically in the site where the oxidative stress is present. This unique dual-functional therapeutic modality, provides a potential to combat the eactive oxygen species (ROS) and its producer in a stringently controlled manner, thus increases therapeutic index and reduce the adverse effect of the drug on normal cells and tissues. There have been many lines of evidence suggesting that the generation of ROS in the central nervous system (CNS) is a major risk factor for neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease (PD), Alzheimer's disease (AD), Huntington's disease (HD), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Contact Information: Email, 310-423-8614
