School of Medicine


Showing 141-158 of 158 Results

  • Jacqueline Tsai, MD, FACS

    Jacqueline Tsai, MD, FACS

    Clinical Associate Professor, Surgery - General Surgery

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy research interests are focused on improving breast cancer surgeries. I am interested in novel techniques in surgery to improve cosmetic outcomes, minimize surgical re-excisions and possible augmented reality technologies to enhance surgery.

  • Jamie Tung, MD

    Jamie Tung, MD

    Clinical Assistant Professor, Surgery - General Surgery

    BioDr. Tung is a fellowship-trained surgeon in the Stanford Health Care Chest Wall Surgery Program. He is a clinical instructor in the Stanford Medicine Department of Surgery.

    His areas of expertise include trauma, general, and critical care surgery. He excels at the surgical treatment of chest wall injury, including stabilization of rib fractures.

    In his research, Dr. Tung has investigated gastrotomy tube complications. He has participated in the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma study of the surgical treatment of liver injury. Other research interests include massive transfusion strategies and education regarding pre-hospital trauma management.

    Dr. Tung has co-authored articles on complications of hernia surgery and other topics. His work has been published in The Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery and Case Reports in Surgery. He also co-authored a chapter on chest wall surgery in the Textbook of Emergency General Surgery.

    Dr. Tung has made presentations at the American College of Surgeons Annual Meeting, Academic Surgical Congress, and other conferences. Topics include massive transfusions, prehospital trauma care, burn resuscitation, and complications of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) in trauma patients.

    He is a member of the American College of Surgeons, Chest Wall Injury Society, Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma, and Association for Academic Surgeons. He is a member of the Stanford Medicine Trauma Committee and other committees. He has worked as and is a certified emergency medical technician (EMT) as well as a tactical physician. He also has served as a “Stop the Bleed” instructor with Stanford Medicine as well as with other institutions where he practiced previously.

    Dr. Tung is fluent in English and Cantonese. He is proficient in Mandarin.

  • Banita Verma

    Banita Verma

    Postdoctoral Scholar, General and Vascular Surgery

    BioI am Banita Verma, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, currently working with Dr. Fredrick M. Dirbas at the Department of Surgery. Our research focus is to understand the type of cell death and the nature of immune responses triggered by FLASH versus conventional radiotherapy in various murine breast cancer models. Additionally, we aim to explore the role of DAMPs released by dying cells in generating immune responses after both FLASH and conventional radiotherapy. Furthermore, we are interested in studying the mechanism behind the low toxicity of the FLASH compared to conventional radiotherapy to the adjacent non-cancerous tissue. To accomplish this goal, our laboratory is actively collaborating with Dr. Bill Loo, who holds great expertise in the field of radiation oncology.
    Before joining Stanford University, I served as a postdoctoral researcher at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden from 2021-2023. My research aimed to study the activation mechanism of Cholineacetyltransferase (ChAT), a pivotal enzyme in acetylcholine synthesis. This enzyme is known to be hypoactive in neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Our group successfully synthesized novel compounds capable of enhancing ChAT activity.
    I completed my doctoral research in cancer biology at the Department of Experimental Medicine and Biotechnology, PGIMER Chandigarh, India, in 2021. My work was the evaluation of role of TNF-α mediated Necroptosis in breast cancer cells. My primary research interests are cancer biology and cell death pathways.

  • Brendan C. Visser, MD

    Brendan C. Visser, MD

    Professor of Surgery (General Surgery)

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Visser's research interests span the breath of his clinical practice. Areas of active research include the multidisciplinary treatment of pancreatic neuroendocrine cancers, technical aspects of minimally invasive pancreatic and liver surgery, and trends in the management of hepatobiliary cancers in California, focusing on socioeconomic and instituional barriers to appropriate care.

  • Irene Wapnir, MD

    Irene Wapnir, MD

    Professor of Surgery (General Surgery)

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsClinical trials in operative procedures such as Nipple-sparing mastectomy, arm lymphatic mapping, skin perfusion and Treatments for Breast Cancer, especially local recurrence. Dr. Wapnir is institutional Principal Investigator and Chair for National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) clinical trials. Laboratory and translational research includes exploring the activity of breast iodide transporter in breast cancer brain metastasis.

  • Thomas G Weiser, MD, MPH

    Thomas G Weiser, MD, MPH

    Clinical Professor, Surgery - General Surgery

    BioDr. Thomas Weiser is a general, emergency, and trauma surgeon, and surgical intensivist. He treats and cares for injured patients and those with acute surgical emergencies as well as manages critically ill surgical patients in the Intensive Care Unit.

    His research is focused on evaluating the role surgical care plays in the delivery of health services in resource poor settings, in particular low and middle income countries. He is interested in barriers to access and provision of surgical care, the quality of surgical services, and outcomes research as well as the science of implementation, how improvements can be made, and how to strengthen compliance with best practices and change behaviors for the better. He also has an interest in domestic policy as it relates to trauma outcomes, trauma systems, insurance coverage and costs of care, and firearm violence.

    Dr. Weiser's projects have focused on the quality of surgical care, strategies for improving the safety and reliability of surgical delivery, and team communications. He works closely with Lifebox, a nonprofit focused on improving surgical and anesthetic safety worldwide, where he was previously the Consulting Medical Officer. Lifebox delivers programs throughout the world in combination with local partners including individual professionals, professional societies, hospitals, other NGOs, and ministries of health. Lifebox works with hospitals in Ethiopia, Liberia, Madagascar, India, Honduras, and Nicaragua, amongst others, to improve care and evaluate the impact of our work. A few programs of particular impact are the distribution of low cost devices to improve the safety of care (including pulse oximeters for the routine monitoring of patients undergoing anesthesia and a new surgical headlight program) and Clean Cut, a surgical infection prevention and control program now being introduced in several countries.

    From 2006-2009, he was part of the World Health Organization’s Safe Surgery Saves Lives program where he quantified the global volume of surgery and created, implemented, evaluated, and promoted the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist. He has worked with the WHO and the World Bank, and is completing a Gates Grand Challenge Grant-funded study to improve the safety of cesarean section in Ethiopia.

    He is a Program Director at Wellcome Leap where he leads Surgery:Assess/Validate/Expand (SAVE).

  • Sherry M. Wren, MD, FACS, FCS(ECSA), FISS

    Sherry M. Wren, MD, FACS, FCS(ECSA), FISS

    Professor of Surgery (General Surgery)

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsOur research interests are primarily in global surgery,robotics,surgical oncology, especially gastrointestinal cancers.

  • Yulia Zak, MD

    Yulia Zak, MD

    Clinical Assistant Professor, Surgery - General Surgery

    BioDr. Yulia Zak earned her medical degree from SUNY Downstate Medical Center before completing general surgery residency at Stanford University and advanced minimally invasive gastrointestinal and bariatric fellowship training at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Zak is certified by the American Board of Surgery and American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. She has also completed the Stanford Surgical Education and Simulation fellowship and was previously an Assistant Program Director for the general surgery residency program at Mount Sinai Beth Israel. Dr. Zak joined the faculty at Stanford in 2018 and is the current Fellowship Associate Program Director. Her current clinical practice is focused on bariatrics, foregut and abdominal wall procedures. Her academic interests include quality improvement, surgical education, and bariatric outcomes.