R. Mark Ghobrial, MD, PhD

J.C. Walter Jr. Presidential Distinguished Chair, Director, J.C. Walter Jr. Transplant Center
Professor of Surgery, Academic Institute
Full Member, Research Institute
Houston Methodist
Weill Cornell Medical College


Sherrie and Alan Conover Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation


Biography

After receiving his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degrees from Cairo University Medical School in Cairo, Egypt, Dr. Ghobrial completed several surgical residencies in the United Kingdom and the United States. While a surgery resident at University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, Texas, he completed a PhD in Immunology at the UT Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in 1994. After residency, he accepted a position as clinical instructor in the Department of Surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and was awarded a Dumont-UCLA Transplant Fellowship. He received his full professorship in 2005 and served as Director of the Pancreas Transplant Program and Living Donor Liver Transplantation, and Service Director for Liver, Pancreas, and Small Bowel Transplantation. He was recruited to the Houston Methodist Hospital in 2008.

Description of Research

One of the primary goals of Dr. Ghobrial´s research is to increase donor tolerance to organ transplants and allografts. Dr. Ghobrial has shown in preclinical studies that tolerizing the host to dominant donor epitopes induces tolerance in the recipient. By engineering chimeric proteins, or proteins that contain sequences from both donor and recipient, and exposing the recipient to these proteins prior to tissue graft, peripheral, long-term tolerance is induced. Dr. Ghobrial also has a long-standing interest in the effects of Hepatitis (B and C) on transplantation patients.

Areas Of Expertise

Liver resection Transplantation Hepatocellular carcinoma Liver transplant Liver disease
Education & Training

Clinical Fellowship, Dumont-UCLA Transplant Center
MD, University of Cairo Medical School
Residency, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
PhD, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Publications

Modern Outcomes After Liver Retransplantation: A Single-center Experience
Connor, AA, Saharia, A, Mobley, CM, Hobeika, MJ, Victor, DW, Kodali, S, Brombosz, EW, Graviss, EA, Nguyen, DT, Moore, LW, Gaber, AO & Ghobrial, RM 2023, , Transplantation, vol. 107, no. 7, pp. 1513-1523. https://doi.org/10.1097/TP.0000000000004500

Development and validation of a REcurrent Liver cAncer Prediction ScorE (RELAPSE) following liver transplantation in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma: Analysis of the US Multicenter HCC Transplant Consortium
Tran, BV, Moris, D, Markovic, D, Zaribafzadeh, H, Henao, R, Lai, Q, Florman, SS, Tabrizian, P, Haydel, B, Ruiz, RM, Klintmalm, GB, Lee, DD, Taner, CB, Hoteit, M, Levine, MH, Cillo, U, Vitale, A, Verna, EC, Halazun, KJ, Tevar, AD, Humar, A, Chapman, WC, Vachharajani, N, Aucejo, F, Lerut, J, Ciccarelli, O, Nguyen, MH, Melcher, ML, Viveiros, A, Schaefer, B, Hoppe-Lotichius, M, Mittler, J, Nydam, TL, Markmann, JF, Rossi, M, Mobley, C, Ghobrial, M, Langnas, AN, Carney, CA, Berumen, J, Schnickel, GT, Sudan, DL, Hong, JC, Rana, A, Jones, CM, Fishbein, TM, Busuttil, RW, Barbas, AS & Agopian, VG 2023, , Liver Transplantation, vol. 29, no. 7, pp. 683-697. https://doi.org/10.1097/LVT.0000000000000145

Factors affecting survival after liver retransplantation: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Brombosz, EW, Moore, LW, Mobley, CM, Kodali, S, Saharia, A, Hobeika, MJ, Connor, AA, Victor, III, DW, Cheah, YL, Simon, CJ, Gaber, AO & Ghobrial, RM 2023, , Frontiers in Transplantation, vol. 2, pp. 1181770. https://doi.org/10.3389/frtra.2023.1181770

Comparative transcriptome profile of mouse macrophages treated with the RhoA/Rock pathway inhibitors Y27632, Fingolimod (Gilenya), and Rezurock (Belumosudil, SLx-2119)
Subuddhi, A, Uosef, A, Zou, D, Ubelaker, HV, Ghobrial, RM & Kloc, M 2023, , International Immunopharmacology, vol. 118, 110017, pp. 110017. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intimp.2023.110017

Progress in Combined Liver-lung Transplantation at a Single Center
Connor, AA, Huang, HJ, Mobley, CM, Graviss, EA, Nguyen, DT, Goodarzi, A, Saharia, A, Yau, S, Hobeika, MJ, Suarez, EE, Moaddab, M, Brombosz, EW, Moore, LW, Yi, SG, Gaber, AO & Ghobrial, RM 2023, , Transplantation Direct, vol. 9, no. 5, pp. E1482. https://doi.org/10.1097/TXD.0000000000001482

Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors for Solid Tumors in the Adjuvant Setting: Current Progress, Future Directions, and Role in Transplant Oncology
Abboud, K, Umoru, G, Esmail, A, Abudayyeh, A, Murakami, N, Al-Shamsi, HO, Javle, M, Saharia, A, Connor, AA, Kodali, S, Ghobrial, RM & Abdelrahim, M 2023, , Cancers, vol. 15, no. 5, 1433. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers15051433

Outcomes in liver transplant recipients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease-related HCC: results from the US multicenter HCC transplant consortium
US Multicenter HCC Transplant Consortium 2023, , Liver transplantation : official publication of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and the International Liver Transplantation Society, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 34-47. https://doi.org/10.1097/LVT.0000000000000007

Enhanced recovery for liver transplantation: recommendations from the 2022 International Liver Transplantation Society consensus conference
ERAS4OLT.org collaborative 2023, , The Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 81-94. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-1253(22)00268-0

Memory Macrophages
Kloc, M, Kubiak, JZ, Zdanowski, R & Ghobrial, RM 2022, , International journal of molecular sciences, vol. 24, no. 1, 38. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24010038

Ox40-Cre-mediated deletion of BRD4 reveals an unexpected phenotype of hair follicle stem cells in alopecia
Wen, M, Ying, Y, Xiao, X, Arnold, PR, Wang, G, Chu, X, Ghobrial, RM & Li, XC 2022, , JCI insight, vol. 7, no. 23, e164534. https://doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.164534

Early Liver Transplantation for Severe Alcohol-Associated Hepatitis and a History of Prior Liver Decompensation
Weinberg, EM, Dukewich, M, Jakhete, N, Stonesifer, E, Im, GY, Lucey, MR, Shetty, K, Rice, JP, Victor, DW, Ghobrial, MR, Shetty, A, Rutledge, SM, Florman, SS, Hsu, C, Shoreibah, M, Aryan, M, Orandi, BJ, Han, H, Terrault, N & Lee, BP 2022, , American Journal of Gastroenterology, vol. 117, no. 12, pp. 1990-1998. https://doi.org/10.14309/ajg.0000000000001901

COVID-19 mortality may be reduced among fully vaccinated solid organ transplant recipients
Sandoval, M, Nguyen, DT, Huang, HJ, Yi, SG, Ghobrial, RM, Gaber, AO & Graviss, EA 2022, , PLoS ONE, vol. 17, no. 12 December, e0279222. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279222

Hospitalization and survival of solid organ transplant recipients with coronavirus disease 2019: A propensity matched cohort study
Swan, JT, Rizk, E, Jones, SL, Nwana, N, Nicolas, JC, Tran, AT, Xu, J, Nisar, T, Menser, T, Yi, SG, Moore, LW, Huang, HJ, Ghobrial, RM, Gaber, AO & Knight, RJ 2022, , PLoS ONE, vol. 17, no. 12 December, e0278781. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278781

7T MRI and molecular studies of Dotarem (gadoterate meglumine) retention in macrophages.
Uosef, A, Subuddhi, A, Lu, A, Ubelaker, HV, Karmonik, C, Wosik, J, Ghobrial, RM & Kloc, M 2022, , Journal of Magnetic Resonance Open, vol. 12-13, 100085. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmro.2022.100085

Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma: The role of liver transplantation, adjunctive treatments, and prognostic biomarkers
Connor, AA, Kodali, S, Abdelrahim, M, Javle, MM, Brombosz, EW & Ghobrial, RM 2022, , Frontiers in Oncology, vol. 12, 996710. https://doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2022.996710

Novel Benchmark Values for Redo Liver Transplantation: Does the Outcome Justify the Effort?
Abbassi, F, Gero, D, Muller, X, Bueno, A, Figiel, W, Robin, F, Laroche, S, Picard, B, Shankar, S, Ivanics, T, van Reeven, M, van Leeuwen, OB, Braun, HJ, Monbaliu, D, Breton, A, Vachharajani, N, Bonaccorsi Riani, E, Nowak, G, McMillan, RR, Abu-Gazala, S, Nair, A, Bruballa, R, Paterno, F, Weppler Sears, D, Pinna, AD, Guarrera, JV, de Santibañes, E, de Santibañes, M, Hernandez-Alejandro, R, Olthoff, K, Ghobrial, RM, Ericzon, BG, Ciccarelli, O, Chapman, WC, Mabrut, JY, Pirenne, J, Müllhaupt, B, Ascher, NL, Porte, RJ, de Meijer, VE, Polak, WG, Sapisochin, G, Attia, M, Soubrane, O, Weiss, E, Adam, RA, Cherqui, D, Boudjema, K, Zieniewicz, K, Jassem, W, Dutkowski, P & Clavien, PA 2022, , Annals of surgery, vol. 276, no. 5, pp. 860-867. https://doi.org/10.1097/SLA.0000000000005634

Macrophage-, Dendritic-, Smooth Muscle-, Endothelium-, and Stem Cells-Derived Foam Cells in Atherosclerosis
Kloc, M, Kubiak, JZ & Ghobrial, RM 2022, , International journal of molecular sciences, vol. 23, no. 22, 14154. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms232214154

Predicting a Positive Antibody Response after 2 SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccines in Transplant Recipients: A Machine Learning Approach with External Validation
Alejo, JL, Mitchell, J, Chiang, TPY, Chang, A, Abedon, AT, Werbel, WA, Boyarsky, BJ, Zeiser, LB, Avery, RK, Tobian, AAR, Levan, ML, Warren, DS, Massie, AB, Moore, LW, Guha, A, Huang, HJ, Knight, RJ, Gaber, AO, Ghobrial, RM, Garonzik-Wang, JM, Segev, DL & Bae, S 2022, , Transplantation, vol. 106, no. 10, pp. E452-E460. https://doi.org/10.1097/TP.0000000000004259

Are short-term complications associated with poor allograft and patient survival after liver transplantation? A systematic review of the literature and expert panel recommendations
the ERAS4OLT.org Working Group: Claus Niemann, San Francisco, CA, USA, Joerg-Matthias Pollok, London, UK, Marina Berenguer, Valencia, Spain, Shahi Abdul Ghani, London, UK and Ka Siu Fan, London, UK 2022, , Clinical Transplantation, vol. 36, no. 10, e14704, pp. e14704. https://doi.org/10.1111/ctr.14704

Giant Multinucleated Cells in Aging and Senescence—An Abridgement
Kloc, M, Uosef, A, Subuddhi, A, Kubiak, JZ, Piprek, RP & Ghobrial, RM 2022, , Biology, vol. 11, no. 8, 1121. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology11081121