Investigators

R. Mark Ghobrial, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.S., F.R.C.S. (Ed.)

 

	R. Mark Ghobrial, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.S., F.R.C.S. (Ed.) Senior Member The Methodist Hospital Research Institute Chief, Liver Transplantation Surgery Director, Center for Liver Disease & Transplantation Director, Immunobiology Research Center The Methodist Hospital Professor of Surgery Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University E-mail: rmghobrial@tmhs.org Phone: 713-441-6935 Fax: 713-793-7151
Education and Training M.D.   Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery, Cairo University Medical School, Cairo, Egypt Ph.D.   Immunology, University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, TX Postdoctoral Training Residency in Orthopedics, Cardiac Surgery, and General Surgery, United Kingdom Surgery Residency, University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, TX

Biography

After receiving his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degrees from Cairo University Medical School in Cairo, Egypt, Dr. Ghobrial completed several surgical residencies in the United Kingdom and the United States. While a surgery resident at University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, Texas, he completed a PhD in Immunology at the UT Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in 1994. After residency, he accepted a position as clinical instructor in the Department of Surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and was awarded a Dumont-UCLA Transplant Fellowship. He received his full professorship in 2005 and served as Director of the Pancreas Transplant Program and Living Donor Liver Transplantation, and Service Director for Liver, Pancreas, and Small Bowel Transplantation. He was recruited to the Methodist Hospital in 2008.

Description of Research

One of the primary goals of Dr. Ghobrial´s research is to increase donor tolerance to organ transplants and allografts. Dr. Ghobrial has shown in preclinical studies that tolerizing the host to dominant donor epitopes induces tolerance in the recipient. By engineering chimeric proteins, or proteins that contain sequences from both donor and recipient, and exposing the recipient to these proteins prior to tissue graft, peripheral, long-term tolerance is induced. Dr. Ghobrial also has a long-standing interest in the effects of Hepatitis (B and C) on transplantation patients.

Major Areas of Research

Transplantation, hepatocellular carcinoma

Recent Publications

Hong JC, Yersiz H, Farmer DG, Duffy JP, Ghobrial RM, Nonthasoot B, Collins TE, Hiatt JR, Busuttil RW. Longterm outcomes for whole and segmental liver grafts in adult and pediatric liver transplant recipients: a 10-year comparative analysis of 2,988 cases. J Am Coll Surg. 2009 May;208(5):682-9; discusion 689-91.

Duffy JP, Hong JC, Farmer DG, Ghobrial RM, Yersiz H, Hiatt JR, Busuttil RW. Vascular complications of orthotopic liver transplantation: experience in more than 4,200 patients. J Am Coll Surg. 2009 May;208(5):896-903; discussion 903-5.

Liu D, Shen XD, Zhai Y, Lam W, Liao J, Busuttil RW, Ghobrial RM. Intragraft selection of the T cell receptor repertoire by class I MHC sequences in tolerant recipients. PLoS One. 2009 Jun 29;4(6):e6076.

Fischer CP, Fahy BN, Aloia TA, Bass BL, Gaber AO, Ghobrial RM. Timing of referral impacts surgical outcomes in patients undergoing repair of bile duct injuries. HPB (Oxford). 2009 11(1):32-7.

Aloia TA, Barakat O, Connelly J, Haykal N, Michel D, Gaber AO, Ghobrial RM. Gastric radiation enteritis after intra-arterial yttrium-90 microsphere therapy for early stage hepatocellular carcinoma. Exp Clin Transplant. 2009 Sep;7(3):141-4.

Freise C, Ghobrial M; A2ALL Study Group. Response to letter "Systematic grading of morbidity after living donation for liver transplantation". Gastroenterology. 2009 Nov;137(5):1855-6.

Aloia TA, Fahy BN, Fischer CP, Jones SL, Duchini A, Galati J, Gaber AO, Ghobrial RM, Bass BL. Predicting poor outcome following hepatectomy: analysis of 2313 hepatectomies in the NSQIP database. HPB (Oxford). 2009 Sep;11(6):510-5.