Sept. 10, 2025 — Backed by funding from the University of Florida Board of Trustees, the UF Health Aortic Disease Center is leading a campuswide surge in aortic research, committing $1.1 million in seed grants across the university. The research push is bringing surgeons, engineers, psychologists and other scientists together as the center leads efforts to better prevent, predict and treat diseases of the body’s main artery.

As one of the nation’s busiest aortic centers by surgical volume, the UF Health Aortic Disease Center is leveraging its clinical and academic strength to catalyze science ranging from imaging and artificial intelligence to biology and health services.

These investments allow the center to identify promising early findings and help develop them into larger federal awards while strengthening collaboration across UF colleges and departments.

“People tend to work in silos,” said Eric Jeng, M.D., M.B.A., an associate professor in the UF Department of Surgery and the associate director of the center. “But we do better when we work in a multidisciplinary format across colleges. We’re helping people work together to solve problems and drive science forward.”

The investments back early-stage ideas with clear paths to external awards, especially National Institutes of Health R01s and multi-investigator grants. While all of the studies involve aortic disease, not all involve Department of Surgery faculty. The fund supports cross-college teams in disciplines, including medicine, engineering, public health, psychology, neurosurgery, radiology and data science, with an emphasis on translational work that moves findings into practice.

Awards prioritize studies that could change surgical decision-making, refine imaging, apply AI to risk prediction and improve perioperative care and long-term outcomes.

The center anticipates funding more than a dozen projects overall, backing research that will expand the university’s research footprint and position teams for federal grants from organizations such as the National Institutes of Health.

Serban Negoita, M.D., a resident in the Lillian S. Wells Department of Neurosurgery, is partnering with the Aortic Disease Center and UF engineering to develop the GITR, or “Gator,” drain: a spinal drain with embedded electrodes designed to monitor the spinal cord in real time during complex aortic repairs.

Negoita had the idea for the drain while rotating with the anesthesiology service. He learned about the importance of spinal drains, which are placed in aortic surgery patients to avoid postoperative complications such as stroke or spinal cord ischemia.

Then it dawned on him: placing electrodes on these spinal drains would allow physicians to monitor electrical activity in the spine.

“The electrodes can warn us if electrical activity generated by the spinal cord begins to dip, which can indicate that the spinal cord isn’t receiving enough blood flow,” Negoita said.

With this valuable information, physicians on the surgical team, as well as the anesthesiology and critical care teams, can take steps to increase blood pressure, remove spinal fluid or administer medications to avoid neurologic injury.

“We anticipate this will help reduce the rate of spinal cord stroke in patients undergoing aortic surgery and thus improve patient safety and outcomes,” said Negoita, noting this project is made possible due to UF’s world-class clinical and engineering multidisciplinary infrastructure. “The expertise and collaborative culture at UF are ultimately what has taken the Gator drain from a vision to a reality.”

Catherine Price, Ph.D., a professor in the College of Public Health and Health Professions and the College of Medicine, is teaming up with the Aortic Disease Center to study the link between preoperative brain health and surgical outcomes.

“Surgical procedures are a ‘brain stress test’ and this is particularly true for aortic-related procedures,” said Price, the director of the UF Perioperative Clinical Anesthesiology Network, or PeCAN. “Extensive evidence links preoperative brain health to surgical outcomes, and particularly aortic surgery.”

These links have been established through independent and collaborative research performed by PeCAN throughout the years. Now, in collaboration with the Aortic Disease Center, they will work to develop cognitive evaluations for aortic patients prior to surgery.

Price said individuals who are concerned about memory or thinking, or who are depressed or diagnosed with a brain disorder, are often provided the same perioperative care as individuals without those diagnoses or concerns.

By developing a cognitive evaluation and continuing to study the links between brain health and surgical outcomes, Price aims to reduce postoperative complications and dementia for older adults who need aortic surgeries.

“All the things we want to do have the potential to be impactful not only here at the University of Florida, but across the world,” Jeng said. “If we’ve identified a problem or an area that needs improvement, other people are probably experiencing the same thing.”

Jeng said the high volume of patients at the Aortic Disease Center — the second-busiest aortic center in the country — means the center is positioned to not only see many of the same problems as elsewhere but also to proactively address them.

“Sometimes simple solutions make huge impacts,” he said. “That’s really what we’re looking to do: provide a lot of solutions so we can make a lot of small impacts that, hopefully, make a really, really big one.”