“In Bahaaldin Alsoufi, we have an accomplished teacher, researcher and clinician,” said Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery Chair Mark Slaughter, MD. “His expertise will be a great asset in contributing to our continued success in providing best-in-class care to our pediatric patients.”

“We’re excited to have Dr. Alsoufi join Dr. Erle H. Austin III and Dr. Deborah J. Kozik in helping us provide the most advanced care for children at the Norton Children’s Heart Institute,” said Steven T. Hester, MD, division president, Provider Operations, and system chief medical officer, Norton Healthcare “Dr. Alsoufi will be part of a team that includes many heart specialists from UofL Physicians. This group collectively performs more than 17,500 procedures annually including heart transplants, open heart surgeries, catheterizations, electrophysiology and noninvasive tests, such as echocardiograms.”

Alsoufi is board-certified by the American Board of Surgery, American Board of Thoracic Surgery, American Board of Congenital Cardiac Surgery and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He has served as associate professor in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery’s Section of Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery at Emory in Atlanta since 2013. Prior to his appointment at Emory, Alsoufi served in a number of positions at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Alsoufi is lead or co-author on 150 peer-reviewed journal articles and has presented at more than 100 international, national, regional and institutional conferences. His clinical interests include neonatal cardiac surgery, single ventricle palliation, valvular heart disease in children and adults with congenital heart disease and pediatric heart transplantation. His research interests include clinical outcomes research, valvular heart disease, heart transplantation and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, known as ECMO, which is the process of providing prolonged cardiac and respiratory support to persons whose heart and lungs are unable to provide an adequate amount of gas exchange to sustain life.

Additionally, he serves on the editorial board of multiple international journals including the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery and the World Journal of Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery. He is interested in quality, teaching and clinical outcome research and has received a number of teaching and academic rewards.  

Alsoufi is a native of Syria where he earned his MD degree from Damascus University. He completed a general surgery internship at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore and a general surgery residency at the University of Massachusetts in Worcester. He completed a cardiothoracic surgery residency at Oregon Health Science University, Portland; a fellowship in adult cardiac surgery at Toronto General Hospital, University of Toronto, Canada; and a fellowship in congenital cardiac surgery at the Hospital for Sick Children also at the University of Toronto.

“The availability of suitable donor lungs for transplantation continues to be a major obstacle to increasing the number of lung transplants performed annually, and this study demonstrated that reasonable outcomes are possible with the use of advanced age donors,” said William Micah Whited, MD, University of Louisville Department of Surgery. “Research such as this that explores the means of expanding the donor pool is of critical importance.”

Whited, along with senior author Matthew Fox, MD, of the Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery and other colleagues from UofL, queried the United Network of Organ Sharing thoracic transplant database to identify lung transplant recipients age 18 years or older.

Between January 2005 and June 2014, 14,222 lung transplants were performed. Of these lung transplant recipients, 26 percent were age 50 years or younger, with 2 percent receiving lungs from donors older than age 60. Among this group of younger patients who received older donor lungs, there was no significant difference in five-year survival when compared to patients who received lungs from younger donors.

The researchers also examined the impact of double versus single lung transplant on long-term survival, finding that younger patients who received older donor lungs experienced much better outcomes when a double versus a single transplantation was performed.

The study showed that in younger patients who received a single lung transplant using organs from older versus younger donors, there was a lower five-year survival: 15 percent versus 50 percent. However, with a double lung transplant, there was no significant difference in five-year survival: 53 percent versus 59 percent.

“Ideal donor” criteria vary by hospital, but the researchers said that the criteria generally consist of brain death, age less than 45 to 50 years, minimal smoking history, and no evidence of pneumonia or trauma. Donor organs that do not meet all of the ideal donor criteria are sometimes accepted, but not always.

Whited said that while the use of extended criteria donor lungs varies from program to program, most surgeons should be willing to accept non-ideal donors, especially those who are older but otherwise good candidates.

“The vast majority of potential donors do not meet the relatively strict donor criteria,” he said. “As a result, we need to continue exploring options that would expand the donor pool and more aggressively utilize extended criteria donors. Much like the general population, the donor pool has continued to grow older. Now more than ever, we have to rely on older donors.”

The U.S. Organ Procurement & Transplant Network reports that 1,399 people currently are waiting for a lung transplant in the United States. The overall median waiting time for candidates on the wait list is four months, while more than 200 people die annually waiting for a lung transplant, according to an OPTN report.

Off the playing field, however, the two schools channel their energy to defeat a common enemy: disease. Their combined efforts are helping to lead to new therapies, improved patient outcomes and healthier lives.

At the UofL Health Sciences Center, several projects are underway that are Duke-UofL collaborations. From clinical trials researching an experimental drug for patients undergoing heart surgery to studies examining ways to make drugs for infants and children safer, such multi-center research is the key to discovering the cures of tomorrow.

Multi-center testing of new drugs and other therapies has long been part of the FDA approval process. In the lengthy journey a new drug takes from the laboratory to the patient — “from lab bench to patient bedside,” in the verbiage of researchers — multi-center testing is a final linchpin before a drug goes up for review.

While many steps can be taken from bench to bedside, the basic path a drug follows is first in the lab, then in a small sample of patients at one location and finally in a large sample of patients at several locations. Only then can a drug be submitted to the FDA for possible approval.

Other factors are fueling the move toward collaborative research, most notably, the National Institutes of Health’s increased emphasis on awarding funding for these types of studies. In 2004, the NIH examined the state of medical research and offered up ways to improve it through a comprehensive plan called the NIH Roadmap. With the 2006 creation of the NIH Common Fund to support research developed from the Roadmap, the growth of collaborative research was underway.

Today, this growth is reflected by studies published in medical journals: More than 40 percent of published studies in leading journals are collaborative in nature. Not surprisingly, research funding favors collaboration as well; both government agencies and private foundations have increasingly structured requests for proposals to favor collaboration.

Among the collaborative studies underway at UofL is a clinical trial headed by Mark Slaughter, MD, investigating a new drug, Levosimendan. Patients meeting certain criteria who are undergoing bypass surgery are randomized to receive either the investigational drug or a placebo. The study will evaluate if the drug reduces adverse outcomes such as heart attack or death and the need for further treatment such as mechanical assist devices and dialysis within 30 days of the original surgery. Slaughter is chair of the Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at UofL.

In the Department of Pediatrics, Michael Smith, MD, is active with the Pediatric Trials Network (PTN) and the Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group (ARLG), both of which are based at Duke University. The PTN is a network of pediatric clinical trials sites that focuses on pharmacokinetics — how drugs work and move through the body — and drug safety studies in children. Smith is a member of the Network Steering Committee for the PTN and has conducted trials with the group in the past. Currently, he is the external team leader for a PTN trial, Antibiotic Safety in Infants with Complicated Intra-Abdominal Infections. This is an international, multicenter safety and pharmacokinetic trial of antibiotics in newborns who have complicated abdominal infections. Coming soon will be a new trial with the ARLG: Smith will be the national principal investigator for a first-in-children trial of a new drug known as an aminoglycoside, a bactericidal antibiotic.

Elizabeth Wise, APRN, is with the Department of Neurology and a member of the University of Louisville Hospital stroke team. She is working with Duke researchers on a clinical trial to assess outcomes for patients who have experienced ischemic strokes that occur as a result of an obstruction within a blood vessel supplying blood to the brain. PROSPER — Patient-centered Research into Outcomes Stroke patients Prefer and Effectiveness Research — is a three-year study that documents how well the patients regain their independence after leaving the hospital. UofL has enrolled 65 patients to date, and is one of the highest-enrolling of the 75 sites in the study.

Wise has found the Duke researchers to be excellent partners on this project as well as previous collaborations. “They have a huge team and they are very responsive and easy to work with,” she said. “I look forward to doing more research with them. They have always had great projects.”

“Great” seems to be the operative word. Fans look forward to a great game Friday night, and the UofL-Duke matchups at the Health Sciences Center are making great strides in advancing medical knowledge.

To learn more about UofL-Duke collaborative studies and about all the clinical trials currently underway at UofL, visit the .