Department of Surgery

May 1, 2023May 1, 2023

Welcoming New Faculty – Amy E. Hackmann, MD, FACS

Please join us in welcoming Amy E. Hackmann, MD, FACS, as a new faculty member in the Department of Surgery.

Amy E. Hackmann, MD, FACS
Associate Surgeon, Division of Cardiac Surgery

Dr. Hackmann received her undergraduate degree in chemistry and her medical degree from the University of Missouri, Kansas City. She received general surgery residency training at the University of South Florida and completed a residency in cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She completed a research fellowship in vascular surgery at Washington University, St. Louis and a fellowship in cardiothoracic transplantation and mechanical circulatory support at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. She is certified by the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Thoracic Surgery.

Before joining the Brigham, Dr. Hackmann was an associate professor of cardiovascular and thoracic surgery, chief of Extracorporeal Life Support (ECMO) and associate program director of the thoracic surgery residency at UT Southwestern Medical Center, as well as medical director of Cardiovascular/Thoracic ECMO at the Parkland Health & Hospital System. She is a member of various medical institutions, including the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS), the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT), the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) and Women in Thoracic Surgery (WTS).

Dr. Hackmann is an adult cardiac surgeon with a clinical focus in heart and lung transplantation and both temporary and durable mechanical circulatory support. She is involved in education efforts for multiple international societies including AATS, STS and the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO). Her research interests include ECMO outcomes, mechanical support for cardiogenic shock and ECMO during CPR (ECPR).

April 21, 2023April 21, 2023

Li Jia, PhD, Awarded a $2M National Institutes of Health Grant

Dr. Jia has been awarded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute for his study, “MMS22L loss and PARP inhibition in prostate cancer.”

One of the major barriers to effective treatment using PARP inhibitor is how to select patients who most likely benefit from PARP inhibition. In this project, we will determine whether loss of MMS22L can predict response to PARP inhibitor in prostate cancer.

Li Jia, PhD
Director of Urology Research, Division of Urology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Assistant Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Jia’s expertise lies in linking basic molecular biology with translational medicine. During the past 16 years, the major focus of his research has been on determining the molecular mechanisms of prostate cancer development and progression. Much effort has been devoted to understanding epigenetic mechanisms of androgen receptor-mediated transcription in prostate cancer. Using high-throughput next-generation sequencing, his lab has investigated dynamic chromatin modifications mediated by androgen receptor binding at a genome-wide level. These genomic analyses have led to the discovery of functional non-coding genetic variants that influence cancer-specific gene transcription. Specifically, his research has determined that prostate cancer risk loci within the chromosomal region 8q24 act as tissue-specific enhancers for the proto-oncogene c-MYC.

Since joining Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School in 2014, Dr. Jia and his lab continue to focus on androgen receptor signaling and its related pathways (including WNT signaling and DNA repair pathway) that drive prostate cancer growth, metastasis and drug resistance. The goal of his research is to understand how these genes and pathways function under androgen-deprived conditions and identify therapeutic vulnerabilities in castration-resistant prostate cancer when androgen receptor-directed therapies fail.

Dr. Jia holds a Bachelor of Medicine and a PhD in nephrology from Nanjing Medical University in China. He completed postdoctoral training in urology at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

April 20, 2023April 20, 2023

Adam Kibel, MD, Awarded a $3.4M National Institutes of Health Grant

Dr. Kibel has been awarded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute for his study, “Polygenic risk stratification combined with mpMRI to identify clinically relevant prostate cancer.”

The premise of this study is that an optimal early detection strategy to identify clinically relevant prostate cancer will involve a two-tiered algorithm that leverages inherited genetic information to determine who is at risk for prostate cancer followed by MRI imaging to determine which of these high-risk patients has clinically relevant disease. We propose to test this premise by implementing a polygenic risk score in men and conducting a prospective trial among 1,500 men with MRI to prove the two-tiered algorithm works. Collaborators include: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Howard University Cancer Center, The Center for Cancer Research of the NCI, The Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG) of the NCI, and the Center for Prostate Disease Research of the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences (USU), Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC), Murtha Cancer Center Research Program (MCCRP) and Urology Service at WRNMMC.

Adam S. Kibel, MD
Chief, Division of Urology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
DiNovi Family Distinguished Chair in Urology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Elliott Carr Cutler Professor of Surgery in Urology, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Kibel is chief of Urology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center and the inaugural incumbent of the DiNovi Family Distinguished Chair in Urology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Cornell University, completed his urology residency at the Harvard Urologic Surgery Residency Program and fellowship training at the Johns Hopkins Brady Urological Institute.

With a practice focused on minimally invasive treatments for urologic cancers, Dr. Kibel has been listed as one of America’s Top Doctors by Castle Connolly and named a top urologist by Boston Magazine. The author of close to 400 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Kibel’s research focuses on the identification of molecular markers of urologic tumors, adjuvant and neoadjuvant approaches to treatment of aggressive disease, and improved imaging of patients with urologic malignancies. His research has been supported by multiple organizations including the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, the American College of Surgeons and the American Foundation for Urologic Disease.