Michael T. Watkins , MD was the 2004 Wylie Scholar. He currently serves as the Director of the Vascular Research Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital and Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.
What was your FAVR funded research?
Within the last decade, minimally invasive technologies (endovascular repairs) have revolutionized the treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms by reducing the duration of hospitalization, blood utilization and perioperative complications.
However, progress in applying endovascular techniques to the treatment of complicated thoroabdominal aneurysms has been less successful, primarily because of where the aneurysm is located and the overall stress the operation puts on a patient. Thoroabdominal aneurysms are particularly difficult to treat because they traverse into body cavities (the chest and abdomen), they usually begin close to the great vessels supplying the brain and arms, and they terminate near the major vessels supplying the kidneys, intestines and lower extremities. Consequently, the primary treatment for complex throacoabdominal aneurysms remains open surgical repair.
My research involves new therapies for the repair of thoracic aortic aneurysms. Our focus is on the effect of an experimental drug, PJ34, in preventing systemic inflammation and decreasing possible spinal cord injury following surgical repair of aortic aneurysms in the thorax.
What impact did the Wylie Scholar Award have on your ability to continue research?
The funding from the Wylie Scholar Award provided protected time and precious resources' that allowed me to concentrate on the fundamental basic problems associated with establishing a new model of thoracic aortic ischemia reperfusion in the mouse. At the time of my Wylie Scholar application, I had made the transition from Boston University to the Massachusetts General Hospital. The clinical workload at the MGH involves more thoracic aortic work, so this effort integrated well with the clinical research in our division. We have a couple innovative grant applications pending at the NIH which have evolved from the research completed with funds from the Wylie Scholar Award.
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