Saran Lotfollahzadeh

Instructor, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Biography

I am a physician-scientist. I underwent medical school training and embarked on an integrated five-year general and vascular surgery residency program followed by a clinical fellowship in Pediatric and Vascular Surgery focusing on cardiovascular complications and hemodialysis access in patients with end-stage kidney disease. In doing so, I developed a deep appreciation of the impact of vascular morbidities on overall disease burden. During my clinical training, I performed epidemiological research in an interdisciplinary setup as a country lead with a group in King’s College, UK. However, I was not exposed to the power of translational research. Upon joining the lab of Dr. Chitalia at the Boston University School of Medicine, I was exposed to how to bring clinically relevant problems to testing them bench and dissect mechanistically. With my clinical experience in vascular medicine, oncosurgery, and research experience in thrombosis, I was granted an AHA SFRN fellowship on cardio-oncology. I have developed various animal models, such as different models of femoral artery ligation for hind limb ischemia and inferior vena cava ligation assays in mice as a model of deep vein thrombosis. My passion is to understand molecular pathobiology driving such fundamental processes and amalgamate the clinical experience with translational science focusing on cardiometabolic risk factors.

Publications

  • Published 1/30/2025

    Subramaniam S, Napoleon MA, Lotfollahzadeh S, Kamal MH, Kurniawan H, Elsadawi M, Kenney D, Douam F, Bosmann M, Whelan S, Cabral H, Burks EJ, Zhao G, Kolachalama V, Ravid K, Chitalia V. Tryptophan metabolism reprogramming contributes to the prothrombotic milieu in mice and humans infected with SARS-CoV-2. bioRxiv. 2025 Jan 30. PMID: 39896681.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 12/3/2024

    Dulberger KN, La J, Li A, Lotfollahzadeh S, Jose A, Do NV, Brophy MT, Gaziano JM, Ravid K, Chitalia VC, Fillmore NR. External validation of a novel cancer-associated venous thromboembolism risk assessment score in a safety-net hospital. Res Pract Thromb Haemost. 2025 Jan; 9(1):102650. PMID: 39839661.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 9/1/2024

    Lotfollahzadeh S, Vazirani A, Sellinger IE, Clovie J, Hoekstra I, Patel A, Malloum AB, Yin W, Paul H, Yadati P, Siracus J, Malikova M, Pernar LI, Francis J, Stern L, Chitalia VC. Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor Pathway Augments Peritoneal Fibrosis in a Murine CKD Model Exposed to Peritoneal Dialysate. Kidney360. 2024 Sep 01; 5(9):1238-1250. PMID: 39235862.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 6/26/2024

    Zhu M, Farber A, King E, Alonso A, Kobzeva-Herzog A, Cooper J, Lotfollahzadeh S, Chitalia VC, Siracuse JJ. Early Kidney Transplantation or Conversion to Peritoneal Dialysis after First-Time Arteriovenous Access Creation. Ann Vasc Surg. 2024 Nov; 108:57-64. PMID: 38942372.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 5/29/2024

    Bathla T, Lotfollahzadeh S, Quisel M, Mehta M, Malikova M, Chitalia VC. End Organ Affection in Sickle Cell Disease. Cells. 2024 May 29; 13(11). PMID: 38891066.

    Read at: PubMed