The 2025 Blakemore Prize Winner
The winner of the Blakemore Prize, for 2025 is Dr.med. Karina A. Bruestle, MD, a graduate of the General Surgery Residency Program at New York Presbyterian, Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
Karina Bruestle grew up in Southwest Germany and attended a bilingual German-French Highschool. During medical school, Karina spent her clinical years as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar at the University of Massachusetts (UMass), MA. She worked on her doctoral thesis “Enhancing immune cell reconstitution with genetically engineered Tcell precursors” in Dr.van den Brink’s lab at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), NY and received both medical and doctoral degree (MD/Dr.med.) from Freiburg University, Germany. During her first years as a surgical resident in the Department of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgery at the University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland, Dr Bruestle continued her research work on the role of regulatory T cells in transplantation in an orthotopic murine lung transplant model. She received the Filling the Gap award, successfully acquired research grants, published and presented at national and international conferences.
She came to work on transplant tolerance in a non-human primate model at the Columbia Center for Translational Immunology (CCTI) under mentorship of Dr Griesemer and Dr Sykes. For her work on inducing immune tolerance with autologous expanded regulatory T cells in a kidney transplant model, she received among others the Community of Transplant Scientists Award and the award for Best Presentation in Basic Science at the Columbia Department of Surgery Research Symposium 2021. Her work on tracking T cells with the help of immuno-PET in a primate kidney transplant model was recognized as one of the most influential abstracts of the American Transplant Congress in their section “what’s hot what’s new – basic science”.
Her current research projects on transplant tolerance induction using kidney and heart primate transplant models at the Columbia Center for Translational Immunology were recently recognized with the Nelson Transplant Innovation Award. With the help of the John Jones Fellowship at Columbia, she is working on translating the immuno-PET for cardiac allografts. Karina is thrilled about the clinical and research opportunities at Columbia and hopes to solidify her career as a surgeon-scientist.
The next step on her journey is completing a Cardiothoracic Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn).
The Blakemore Prize is awarded annually for the best body of research performed by a graduating Chief General Resident during the training program. A research committee composed of current surgery faculty members, review submissions.
The Review Committee, congratulated Dr. Bruestle on her outstanding research achievements, and wished her continued success as a surgeon and research scientist.
She receives $2,000 in prize money, and her name will be added to the Blakemore Plaque listing previous winners, hanging on the wall on 7 Garden South, in the Milstein Hospital Building.
See previous Blakemore Prize winners.
History of The Blakemore Prize
Dr. Arthur H. Blakemore joined the surgical faculty in 1936. He and Dr. Arthur B. Voorhees, Jr., were distinguished vascular surgeons in our department who described laboratory and clinical studies of vascular replacement using Vinyon N sail cloth in 1954. Blakemore was a surgical innovator also well known for the Blakemore tube, widely used in the past for the treatment of bleeding esophageal varices.
As a resident working in Blakemore's laboratory, Dr. Voorhees appreciated the importance of laboratory research by house staff and later established a fund to support the Blakemore Prizes and Awards. Dr. Roman Nowygrod a current faculty member and a vascular surgeon, has been a pivotal figure in maintaining the tradition of these research prizes.
For further information on the Blakemore Prize and Awards, and the Resident Research Symposium, contact:
Giovanni Ferrari PhD
Vice Chair of Research & Director, Cardiothoracic Surgery Research
Associate Professor of Surgery and BME
Columbia University
Email: gf2375@cumc.columbia.edu
Web: https://www.ferrarilabcolumbia.com/