Marcos Vidal Melo, MD, PhD, named to Endowed Professorship
At its May 2024 meeting, the Board of Trustees at Columbia University appointed Dr. Marcos Vidal Melo to the Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology Professorship at the Columbia University Medical Center. The endowed professorship acknowledges his distinguished standing as Division Chief of Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology.
Dr. Vidal Melo, who recently received university tenure, is a physician-scientist renowned internationally for his clinical and translational cardiopulmonary research. Before joining Columbia in 2021, he was at Harvard Medical School for 23 years, where he was Professor of Anesthesia and the Hellman Endowed Chair in Anesthesia Research in the Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care, and Pain Medicine.
Dr. Vidal Melo develops imaging and bioengineering techniques to study the changes in pulmonary function that accompany mechanical ventilation and acute lung injury. This research has had an impact on multiple basic and clinical disciplines, including critical care medicine, anesthesiology, biomedical engineering, and nuclear medicine approaches to lung imaging. He has been awarded well over $15 million in independent support for his clinical and translational research since 2007. Most recently, he led an NIH-funded study across 16 institutions, enrolling patients requiring mechanical ventilation during and after major abdominal surgeries and identifying strategies to minimize lung trauma. He has led international groups of researchers focused on protective lung ventilation and has lectured extensively worldwide on thoracic anesthesia, echocardiography, lung injury and physiology, and respiratory function and ventilation.
Dr. Vidal Melo has more than 20 years of clinical experience as a cardiothoracic and vascular anesthesiologist. As chief of our division of cardiothoracic anesthesiology, he leads the faculty team that cares for a challenging, complex patient population, referred from around the world, for extensive cardiothoracic surgery. These high-risk patients undergo a range of complex procedures, including ascending aortic aneurysm repair, heart and lung transplantations; and thoracic and vascular services, including tracheal resection and reconstruction surgery.
As an educator, Dr. Vidal Melo has supervised hundreds of fellows, residents, and medical students, and enhanced the career progress of a large group of postdoctoral mentees with diverse professional interests. Inspired by his depth, creativity, and expertise, most of his mentees have published with him and have established their own professional careers in academic medicine and research.
Dr. Vidal Melo has published nearly 150 peer-reviewed research articles and 35 reviews, chapters, or editorials, and serves in key committee positions in academic service worldwide, including the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research, the American Society of Anesthesiologists, and his recent role as chair of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Study Section on Surgery, Anesthesia, and Trauma.