Resident Wins Prestigious International Cardiac Surgery Research Award

A legacy of excellence: Award recipient Dr. Jimmy Kang (second from left) stands with his supervisor, Dr. Jeevan Nagendran (far right), who won the same prestigious international award in 2013.

A senior cardiac surgery resident and PhD candidate at the University of Alberta has been awarded the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) C. Walton Lillehei Resident Forum Award.

Dr. Jimmy Kang, a fifth-year cardiac surgery resident and third-year PhD student under the Royal College Clinical Investigator program, received the honor at the 106th AATS Annual Meeting. The Lillehei Resident Forum is a highly competitive international stage highlighting top trainee research in cardiothoracic surgery. The award is widely considered the most prestigious trainee research recognition in the field.

Dr. Kang’s achievement is particularly rare, as only a handful of Canadians have ever won the award. This year's competition saw a record-breaking number of global submissions.

Adding a unique layer of mentorship to the milestone, Dr. Kang’s research supervisor, Dr. Jeevan Nagendran, won the exact same award in 2013. The matching achievements highlight the long-standing strength, continuity, and exceptional mentorship within the University of Alberta’s cardiac surgery research program.

Dr. Kang’s award-winning presentation focused on tissue-engineered heart valves. His research targets the durability of artificial heart valves, specifically investigating why bioprosthetic valves fail over time. His work has demonstrated that the human immune system plays a major role in the degeneration of these valves. To combat this, Dr. Kang's research proposes novel strategies to mitigate immune-mediated structural valve degeneration through mesenchymal stem cell recellularization.