Laman Gray, M.D.

Medical Director

Dr. Gray’s vision to promote translational research by unifying basic science and clinical practice was the foundation for the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute.  Throughout his distinguished career as a cardiothoracic surgeon, Dr. Gray has been a pioneer in the field of cardiovascular assist devices and artificial organ transplantation.  On July 2, 2001, a surgical team led by Drs. Gray and (Rob) Dowling implanted the first AbioCor Implantable Replacement Heart into Robert Tools, who lived 151 additional days on the device.  Dr. Gray performed the first heart transplant in Kentucky (1984) and the first bridge-to-heart transplant after the use of a Thoratec® bi-ventricular assist device in the United States (1985). He was also an original investigator for the Novacor® ventricular assist device. In 1992, he performed the first clinical use of ABIOMED’s SupraCor intra-aortic balloon pump and was one of four primary clinical investigators who brought ABIOMED’s BVS 5000 temporary cardiac support system to clinical approval by the FDA.

Dr. Gray joined the faculty and staff of the University of Louisville and Jewish Hospital in 1974, and has been the director of the Division of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at UofL since 1976.  Under his leadership, the division’s faculty has conducted ground-breaking research in minimally invasive and beating-heart cardiac surgeries, cardiomyoplasty, pre-transplant organ preservation and mechanical circulatory support devices.  Dr. Gray received his M.D. from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. He completed his training with an internship and residencies in general and thoracic surgery at the University of Michigan.

Stuart K. Williams, Ph.D.

Scientific Director

Dr. Williams is an established academic and industry leader in numerous areas ranging from biomedical devices to regenerative medicine to vascular therapeutics.  As the CII’s scientific director since Spring of 2007, he works closely with Dr. Gray and Mr. Greenberg to shape and direct the Institute’s research agenda.  Dr. Williams has a long, successful history of developing intellectual property and translating basic scientific research into useful applications in the medical field.  His research spans the fields of cardiovascular bioengineering, biomaterials and diabetes, and he is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the United States Army, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and several private corporations.   He is the co-founder of three biosciences companies and serves as a scientific advisor for several others, and holds 15 U.S. patents with several additional patents pending.  In addition to serving as Scientific Director at the CII, he is the Jewish Hospital Distinguished Chair in Cardiovascular Innovation.

Dr. Williams comes to the CII from Arizona, where he has served as professor and chairman of University of Arizona’s biomedical engineering since 1997.  While at Arizona, he also directed the Arizona Research Laboratories’ Division of Biomedical Engineering and held joint appointments in the University’s Departments of Materials Science and Engineering, Surgery and Physiology.  Dr. Williams educational background includes a postdoctoral fellowship in pathology completed at Yale University School of Medicine, as well as a B.A. in biological sciences, an M.S. in biochemistry and a Ph.D. in cell biology, all from the University of Delaware. .

Roberto Bolli, M.D. is director of the Division of Cardiology and the UofL Institute for Molecular Cardiology, as well as Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Medicine. His research focuses on preventing the damage caused during heart attacks by studying ischemic preconditioning, the phenomenon in which heart muscle exposed to brief periods of stress becomes resistant to the tissue death that might be caused by a heart attack.  His research may lead to combination therapies where heart assist devices can be used in combination therapies.  Since his arrival at UofL in 1994, Bolli and his team have brought more than $50 million in NIH grants to the University. Bolli earned his medical degree at the University of Perugia in Italy and was a cardiology research fellow at the NIH.  Prior to joining UofL, he was a professor of cardiology at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

James B. Hoying, Ph.D., is the Chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Therapeutics at the CII and Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery at UofL.  He brings an invaluable combination of expertise in engineering and biological sciences, and an extensive research background in vascular physiology, which is best illustrated by the number of national awards he has won for his research into the mechanisms of blood vessel formation and function.  Dr. Hoying also brings a strong desire to promote translational research at the CII and help develop small business startups.  He is the co-founder and President of Angiomics, Inc., a company dedicated to improving vascular health by providing research and discovery services.

Dr. Hoying comes to the CII from Arizona, where he was an Associate Professor in the Arizona Research Laboratories’ division of Biomedical Engineering, as well as Co-founder and Co-Director of the Genomics Research Laboratory (GRL).  He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Biology and Molecular Biology from Case Western Reserve University, and his PhD in Cardiovascular Physiology from the University of Arizona.  He currently serves as the chair of the American Heart Association Great America Affiliate Consortium 2B Vascular Wall Biology I Research Peer Review Group.  He is an ad hoc member of Special Emphasis Panels for the National Institutes of Health, and he reviews papers for a number of journals including Nature Medicine and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Rob Dowling, M.D., professor of surgery at UofL, is an important member of the CII clinical team that assists in planning for studies with clinical relevance and/or involving clinical procedures.  Dr. Dowling is widely recognized as an expert in ventricular remodeling (the “Batista” procedure), transmyocardial revascularization (TMR) and mechanical heart devices.  Along with Dr. Gray, he performed the world’s first implantation of the AbioCor®, Implantable Replacement Heart, at Jewish Hospital.  In 1995, Dr. Dowling performed the first double-lung transplant in Kentucky; he then performed the first ventricular remodeling in Kentucky the following year. 

Dr. Dowling is the surgical director of the Heart Transplant Program and director of the Mechanical Circulatory Support Program at Jewish Hospital.  He is also director of the Heart Transplant Program at Kosair Children’s Hospital in Louisville. He has written more than 85 articles, book chapters and abstracts and serves on a National Institutes of Health integrated review group.  He received his M.D. and training in cardiothoracic surgery and transplantation at the University of Pittsburgh.

Chad M. Stiening, Ph.D. joined the CII in June of 2007 and currently serves as Chief of the Division of Translational Research Advancement, as well as Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Surgery.  Dr. Stiening has complemented his scientific education and experiences with a business background that includes a degree in Finance as well as industry experience in biotechnology.  His primary objective within the CII is to promote and facilitate translational research, which means taking new ideas and technologies from the lab benches of the CII and facilitating their development into new medical devices and applications that benefit the patient- “from bench to beside.”

Dr. Stiening earned a B.S. in Biology and a B.A. in Finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Ph.D. in Animal Science with a research emphasis in Molecular & Cellular Genetics from the University of Arizona.  He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arizona.  His scientific research has largely focused on methods of genomic analysis, molecular and cellular genetics in mammary epithelial and vascular endothelial cells, and the molecular regulation underlying angiogenesis and tissue vascularization. 

George Pantalos, Ph.D. has been a cardiovascular explorer for over 35 years.  He has been a Professor of Surgery and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Louisville, in partnership with Jewish Hospital, since July 2000, after holding similar appointments at the University of Utah for 17 years.  His efforts to understand cardiovascular function have focused on treating heart failure with mechanical devices including artificial hearts and ventricular assist devices, which he has helped develop, test and implement clinically in patients with two legs and with four legs, with big hearts and with little hearts.  He has also collaborated with NASA for many years helping to understand cardiovascular adaptation to the weightlessness of space flight and the return to Earth.  George as flown 25 research missions on the NASA Zero-G airplane and has led the development of a cardiovascular experiment that included an artificial heart, which has flown twice on the Space Shuttle Discovery.  With his fellow students, staff, faculty, and patients, his motto has always been, "Share the adventure!"

Dr. Steven Koenig has sixteen years experience with biomedical instrumentation and transducers, and data acquisition and analysis.  Since joining UofL in 1996, Dr. Koenig has developed eight data acquisition systems and physiologic data acquisition (LabVIEW) and analysis (MATLAB) software for hemodynamic monitoring, recording, and analysis in support of IACUC approved large animal model and IRB approved clinical protocols.  Dr. Koenig developed the engineering component of  UofL's Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) program by authoring standard operating procedures (SOP), implementing a calibration and maintenance program, and completing instrumentation calibration procedures resulting in FDA approval for clinical trials of the AbioCor at Jewish Hospital (Louisville, KY).   Dr. Koenig's research focus is on physiological responses to cardiac assist, counterpulsation and mini-pump development projects, and the clinical application of mechanical circulatory support devices to promote myocardial recovery in heart failure patients. Dr. Koenig's research program has been funded by the Whitaker Foundation, American Heart Association, and NIH SBIR program as well as industry partners Abiomed (Danvers, MA), Thoratec (Pleasanton, CA), and SCR Inc. (Louisville, KY) that has resulted in 48 peer-reviewed publications, 17 conference proceedings, 4 book chapters, 54 abstracts, 5 technical reports, and 4 US patents.

Robert S. Keynton, Ph.D. is director of the bioengineering program at the UofL.  His area of expertise is development of biomedical micro-electromechanical systems (BioMEMS) and cardiovascular mechanics. Dr. Keynton, who received his master’s degree and Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Akron, has served on the UofL faculty since 1999 and led the creation of the Speed School of Engineering bioengineering department and its associated curriculum.   He was nominated in 2003 for the Speed School Alumni Scholar for Research Award and the UofL Trustees Award.

Sufan Chien, M.D. is a professor of surgery, who joined the University of Louisville in 1996.  His research interests include metabolic enhancement for tissue protection during ischemia and hypoxia and using various biochemical techniques to improve energy delivery to cells, tissues and the whole body.  His group has developed a new energy delivery technique using nanotechnology, which has shown great promise in cardiomyocyte protection, composite tissue preservation, wound healing, hemorrhagic shock and cardiac arrest.  His team holds two US patents, another that is pending, and more than 12 international patents have been filed.  One of Dr. Chien’s techniques is being incorporated into the University of Wisconsin (UW) solution for extended organ preservation time and this new solution may further extend heart and lung preservation for the purpose of transplantation.

Lauren Unger, Ph.D. has more than eight years experience in pre-clinical Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) regulatory compliance and quality assurance (QA).  Her role in overseeing and maintaining QA and GLP policy at the CII is a critical component in attracting top-notch clinical and industry partners desirous of conducting state-of-the-art research studies at the institute.  Dr. Unger maintains a strong understanding of the research at the CII as well, as she earned her B.A. in Biology and Ph.D. in Anatomy from West Virginia University, with a research emphasis in microcirculatory physiology.