Transplant surgeons to benefit from surgical suite

The new Cottrell Surgical Innovation Suite is critical to their research

The Department of Surgery in the School of Medicine has completed a 10-year planning and construction project that will consolidate their surgical lab spaces into a newly renovated 9,000-square-foot, multifunctional facility on the ninth floor of Sanger Hall. 

A leadership gift from Christine and David Cottrell of over $1 million was donated to the Department of Surgery to advance the university’s infrastructure for improvements in surgical innovation, research and education. More than $3.2 million has been raised from philanthropy. In addition to the Cottrells’ lead gift, the Pauley Family Foundation, Children’s Hospital of Richmond Foundation, Richard and Dianne Nelms, Betty Ann and Lee Griffin, Thomas Brown and several other donors have provided significant support. 

Pauley Heart Center transplant surgeons Vigneshwar Kasirajan, M.D., and Mohammed Quader, M.D., will use the Organ Reanimation Lab, a clinical/research laboratory designed to reanimate organs after circulatory death. Their goal is to sustainably recondition currently unusable hearts to a point where they can be used for transplant. Quader has a grant from the Department of Veterans Affairs to study reanimation of organs in patients who have expired in the emergency department. The Cottrell Surgical Innovation Suite is critical to his research.