About our Research
The Department of Surgery prides itself on its many highly regarded investigators. Some faculty members focus predominantly on basic or translational research (the bench), others on clinical research (the bedside) and some are involved in both realms. More than half of our faculty members are involved in research. Our faculty hold 120 active research grants from both federal and non-federal sources. Clinical faculty design and participate on 50 clinical trials and clinical research projects.
Our surgical microbiome research program pioneered the field in understanding how gut microbes promote surgical complications.
John Alverdy, MD
Sara & Harold Lincoln Thompson Professor of Surgery
The Alverdy Lab studies how physiologic stress disrupts the gut microbiome, leading to surgical infection and sepsis. His work has reshaped how the field understands anastomotic leak and postoperative infection.
Benjamin Shogan, MD
Associate Professor of Surgery
Dr. Shogan serves as the Director of the Surgeon Scientist Training Program. The Shogan Lab studies how the gut microbiome drives postoperative complications following colorectal surgery, including anastomotic leak, cancer recurrence, and postoperative ileus. His translational laboratory is focusing on developing novel methods to manipulate the microbiome to improve outcomes in patients undergoing colorectal surgery.
Our faculty investigate solid tumors across the endocrine, urologic, and gastrointestinal systems, spanning tumor biology, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy.
Xavier Keutgen, MD
Associate Professor of Surgery
Associate Professor of Radiation and Cellular Oncology
Dr. Keutgen serves as the Director of the Endocrine Neoplasia Program. The Keutgen Lab focuses on improving and developing novel therapies for endocrine neoplasms. His research group studies how to improve radioligand therapies for metastatic neuroendocrine tumors by characterizing DNA repair mechanisms and tumor microenvironmental changes, while focusing on discoveries that are rapidly translatable from bench to clinic.
Piyush Agarwal, MD
Professor of Surgery
Dr. Agarwal serves as the Director of the Bladder Cancer Program and Fellowship Director for Urologic Oncology. The Agarwal Lab focuses on bladder cancer, particularly BCG-unresponsive disease, the urinary microbiome, molecular targeted therapy, and immunotherapy, including investigator-initiated clinical trials.
Carrie W. Rinker-Schaeffer, PhD
Professor of Surgery
The Rinker-Schaeffer Lab studies the molecular mechanisms that regulate metastatic colonization, working to identify the genes that control whether disseminated cancer cells grow at distant sites.
Our faculty research ranges from the immune mechanisms of rejection and tolerance to islet-cell transplantation for Type 1 diabetes and machine-perfusion strategies that expand and optimize the donor organ pool.
Anita S. Chong, PhD
Professor of Surgery
Committee on Immunology
The Chong lab combines bench-to-bedside and bedside-to-bench approaches to investigate how that decision is made in the setting of transplantation and pregnancy. By identifying the mechanisms shared across these settings, they aim to develop new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies that improve long-term outcomes for transplant recipients. https://voices.uchicago.edu/thechonglab/
Piotr P. Witkowski, MD PhD
Professor of Surgery
Dr. Witkowski serves as the Director of Pancreatic Islet Cell Transplant Program. The Witkowski Lab leads UChicago's islet-cell transplantation program and conducts research and clinical trials aimed at restoring insulin independence for patients with Type 1 diabetes.
Kumaran Shanmugarajah, MD
Assistant Professor of Surgery
Dr. Shanmugarajah is an Abdominal Transplant & Hepatobiliary Surgeon. The Shanmugarajah's Lab uses machine perfusion to optimize donor organs for transplantation and explores strategies to reduce immunosuppression through transplant tolerance, alongside his focus on liver disease and organ failure.
Investigators combine molecular biology, biomechanics, and bioengineering to study heart failure, aortic disease, and lung disorders — and to build the tissues and models that will drive the next generation of therapies.
Sara Amelia Gaines, MD
Assistant Professor of Surgery
Dr. Gaines serves as the Associate Program Director for General Surgery and the Co-Director of Surgeon-Scientist Training Program. The Gaines Lab investigates how the dysbiotic gut microbiome contributes to uremic vascular toxicity and arteriovenous fistula failure in patients with chronic kidney disease undergoing dialysis. The lab combines clinical biobanking of stool, blood, and tissue samples with mechanistic studies on microbial uremic toxins to understand their effects on endothelial and smooth muscle cell regulation of neointimal hyperplasia. This research aims to improve fistula patency rates and reduce hospitalizations, ultimately advancing translational care for dialysis patients.
Sara Gaines Lab | UChicago Vascular Biology | VIM Surgery Lab
Mahesh P. Gupta, PhD
Professor of Surgery
The Gupta Lab investigates the molecular basis of heart failure, focusing on chromatin-remodeling enzymes in muscle gene regulation, cellular senescence, and cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis.
Maria Lucia Madariaga, MD
Associate Professor of Surgery
The Madariaga Lab focuses on optimizing outcomes of frail, older adult patients undergoing lung cancer surgery through prehabilitation (prehab) before surgery. They use expertise in designing novel programs and interventions and implementing them robustly in clinical settings to optimize outcomes, independence, and quality of life among older adults undergoing surgery.
Narutoshi Hibino, MD PhD
Professor of Surgery
The Hibino’s Lab key research area is cardiovascular tissue engineering using 3D printing/bioprinting technology. First, they aim to use innovative and novel tissue engineering approaches to regenerate the heart using 3D cardiac engineered tissues. The second focus of the lab is patient-specific vascular tissue engineering using 3D printing technology. The ultimate goal is to create a new history to apply these basic researches into clinical fields to improve patients’ quality of life.
Luka Pocivavsek, MD PhD
Associate Professor of Surgery
Dr. Pocivavsek serves as the Director of the SurgBioMech Lab. The Pocivavsek Lab applies the physics of surfaces and interfaces to vascular disease, studying the geometry and biomechanics of acute aortic syndromes to improve prediction and repair.
Pablo Sanchez, MD PhD
Lowell T. Coggeshall Professor of Surgery
Dr. Sanchez serves as the Surgical Director of the Lung Transplant Program. The Sanchez Lab pioneers new approaches to lung transplantation, including ex vivo lung perfusion for evaluating high-risk donor organs and bloodless transplantation, with research aimed at expanding the donor pool and improving outcomes.
Our faculty engineer bone, soft tissue, and lymphatic systems to restore form and function after congenital differences, cancer, and complex reconstruction.
Russell R. Reid, MD PhD
Bernard G. Sarnat M.D. Professor of Surgery
The Reid Lab focuses on craniofacial tissue engineering and bone biology — regenerating bone to repair complex craniofacial defects, the biology of cranial sutures, and gene expression in craniofacial development.
Summer Hanson, MD PhD
Associate Professor of Surgery
Committee on Molecular Metabolism and Nutrition
The Hanson Lab centers on tissue engineering with a focus on the lymphatic system, including approaches to reconstruct and restore lymphatic function.
The Surgical Implementation & Health Services Research (SIHSR) group studies how to deliver surgical care more equitably and effectively — tackling access, cost, quality, workforce, and policy across health systems.
Ted Skolarus, MD
Professor of Surgery
Dr. Skolarus serves as the Director of Surgical Implementation & Health Services Research (SIHSR). Dr. Skolarus directs the SIHSR group, applying implementation science to improve the quality and delivery of urologic and surgical cancer care across health systems. He also leads the department's Huggins Research Symposium.
Ryan Merkow, MD
Associate Professor of Surgery
Dr. Merkow serves as the Vice Chair for Quality & Safety and the Associate Director of Surgical Implementation & Health Services Research (SIHSR). Dr. Merkow studies surgical quality measurement, postoperative outcomes, and the systems factors that shape cancer surgery, working to translate outcomes research into practice change.
Sarah Shubeck, MD
Assistant Professor of Surgery
Dr. Shubeck is a breast surgical oncologist whose research addresses de-escalation of breast cancer surgery, treatment decision-making, and outcomes for high-risk patients.
Yalini Vigneswaran, MD
Associate Professor of Surgery
Dr. Vigneswaran serves as the Chief of Minimally Invasive Surgery and the Program Director for Esophageal Diseases. Dr. Vigneswaran conducts clinical and translational research on gastroesophageal reflux disease, weight-loss and revisional surgery, esophageal cancer, and disparities in access to metabolic and bariatric surgery.
Parth Modi, MD
Associate Professor of Surgery
Dr. Modi's health-services research examines access to urologic cancer care, screening and diagnostic pathways, and the value of urologic interventions.
Denise Asafu-Adjei
Assistant Professor of Surgery
Dr. Asafu-Adjei's research interests span health services and outcomes in urology, including access and quality of care.
Lab / profile: SIHSR group
Faculty apply population-health and data-science approaches to trauma, studying firearm violence and injury prevention through community-engaged research.
Tanya Zakrison
Professor of Surgery
The Zakrison lab studies structural violence as a driver of traumatic injury, spanning the “fast violence” of gunshot wounds and armed conflict and the “slow violence” of disinvestment, food insecurity, legal precarity, and economic sanctions. Domestically, they run Recovery Legal Care, the first medical-legal partnership fully integrated with a hospital-based violence intervention program and now the subject of a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded randomized controlled trial, alongside school-based violence prevention and studies of crime victim compensation and post-injury food insecurity. Internationally, they use quantitative and qualitative methods to measure the health consequences of sanctions and armed conflict, with active work in Cuba and Gaza.