Research Retreat spotlights impact and collaboration across the Department of Anesthesiology

Nearly 100 members of the Department of Anesthesiology gathered April 25 at the North Campus Research Complex (NCRC) for the annual Research Retreat, highlighting departmental research and creating space for new connections and collaborations. 

Sachin Kheterpal, MD, MBA, welcomed attendees and set the tone for the day by emphasizing the importance of a strong research community. 

“Stay with this community; trust each other, help each other, mentor each other,” said Kheterpal, the Robert B. Sweet Endowed Professor of Anesthesiology and Chair. “And as each of us grows, let us grow together because this community is essential to our long-term commitment to and excellence in research.” 

Robert W. Gereau, PhD, a neuroscientist and pain researcher from Washington University in St. Louis, provided the keynote address. He discussed approaches to strengthening the path from discovery to impact and how his lab has spent the last two decades rethinking translational pain research to more reliably inform therapies that work for patients. 

“Today I’m going to talk about how we’ve, over the last couple of decades, really reimagined how we do preclinical and translational work in pain to try and get things over that translational hump,” he said. “I’ll share where we’ve fallen down and figured out where we missed the mark, and then the things that we’ve tried to do to break through these barriers.” 

The day included more than 30 poster presentations, rapid-fire Data Blitz talks highlighting work across the department’s research domains, an update on the department’s national precision education research project, and a panel discussion on large language models (LLMs) in research. 

Chad Brummett, MD, the Bert N. LaDu Professor of Anesthesiology and senior associate chair for research, shared research highlights from the past year. He pointed to the department’s strong national standing, major NIH support (including multiple faculty ranked among top NIH-funded PIs) and a diversified funding base, and more than 400 publications over the past year. 

Brummett encouraged attendees to use the retreat to reconnect and learn from one another’s work. “We’re a big department,” he said. “It’s hard to see everybody, so I hope everyone can take advantage of the opportunity to see people you haven’t seen in a while and to interact with folks who are new.” 

For additional highlights of the day, view the photo gallery below.