Associate Professor of Pathology and General Surgical Pathology Fellowship Program Director Avani Pendse, MBBS, PhD, presented an invited Grand Rounds talk at the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) on May 23rd, 2024. The hybrid event was well attended by both in-person and virtual audiences. She delivered her ongoing research project titled “Looking into the Livers of Orthotopic Lung and Heart Transplant Recipients.”
She is performing the study in collaboration with Duke residents Kasey McCollum, MD, MPH, and Bethany Freeland LeClair, MD, Duke Assistant Professor of Pathology Wei Chen, MD, and Duke Professor of Pathology Chanjuan Shi, MD, PhD. There is a higher likelihood of adverse outcomes in thoracic organ transplant recipients who have significant liver pathology following transplant. Yet, little is known about the changes in the livers after patients have received their thoracic organ transplants. To fulfill this knowledge gap, the group has created a comprehensive morphologic description of changes in the native livers of patients who have received a lung or heart transplant. They plan to submit this manuscript for peer-reviewed publication once it’s completed.
Pendse earned her MBBS from Government Medical College and Hospital in Nagpur, India, in 2004. She earned her PhD from UNC in 2010 and joined Duke Pathology in 2017.