Announcing the 2024-2025 Clinical Seed Award Recipients

We’re thrilled to announce that Drs. Hemra Cil and Irum Khan have been selected as recipients of Department of Anesthesia Clinical Seed Awards for the 2024-2025 cycle.

The purpose of this award mechanism is to provide funding support to clinical Anesthesia faculty for research projects involving human subjects, human samples, and/or data derived from human subjects. This award is for faculty at all career stages and is suitable for individuals without substantial research experience. The Clinical Seed Award program is managed by the Anesthesia Biostatistics and Clinical Research Design (ABCD) Committee, which reviews applications and provides guidance and mentorship to applicants and awardees. The application is a multi-step process, involving a letter of intent, brief presentation, and full proposal submission over a 4–5-month period. During this process, applicants are given iterative feedback to help them develop the strongest project possible. Expert feedback continues during the award period, as awardees are required to give project updates throughout the year.

Read more about the 2024-2025 awardees and their projects below.

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PI: Hemra Cil, MD
Mentor: Kerstin Kolodzie, MD, PhD, MAS
Study: Pharmacokinetics and Quantitative Analysis of Magnesium Sulfate on Transcranial Motor-Evoked Potentials During Major Spinal Surgery

During spinal surgery, there is a potential for injury to neural structures and Trans-cranial motor evoked potentials (TcMEPs) are commonly used to monitor and detect such injuries in real-time. Anesthesiologists often use a variety of opioid-sparing adjuncts during spinal surgery to improve the recovery profile because of the severe pain associated with these procedures. While the impact of general anesthetics on TcMEPs is well described, data on the effects of these adjuncts on TcMEPs is limited. In this pilot project, we will use magnesium, a commonly used opioid-sparing adjunct, to establish a robust protocol that can be used to quantitatively study the effect of the various adjuncts on TcMEPs.

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PI: Irum Khan, MBBS, PhD
Mentor: Matthieu Legrand, MD, PhD
Study: Describing the Practice of Supraglottic Airway Device Use and Selection in the United States: An MPOG Study

We aim to understand how supraglottic airways (SGA) are used and selected as the ventilation device of choice for general anesthesia (GA) procedures in adult patients within the United States. Understanding the variation in SGA use and learning the general criteria that anesthesiologists follow when selecting SGAs for GA cases, is the first step towards designing future studies to examine the safety of SGA use across different clinical scenarios and an avenue towards expanding the use of SGAs in the USA, with a potential for significant impact on clinical practice of anesthesiology, especially in the ambulatory setting.

The next Clinical Seed Award cycle will be announced in March 2025. Potential applicants are encouraged to reach out early by completing the ABCD intake form or emailing [email protected].