Alaa Ousta MD

Summary

• As a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Chicago Department of Emergency Medicine, I am currently appointed as the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s T32 grant awardee through the Cardiovascular Sciences Training Program.
  
  I earned my undergraduate degree in Biology at the American University of Beirut in June 2015 and my MD degree at the American University of Beirut in May 2019. As a young investigator, I contributed to multiple research papers, focusing primarily on clinical and public health projects.
  
  Guided by my mentor Dr. Willard Sharp, I developed an interest in basic sciences. As a T32 awardee, I am currently trying to understand the fundamental mechanisms that contribute to brain injury after cardiac arrest. Given the complex cellular and molecular pathways that lead to such outcomes, I am focusing on the neurologic inflammatory mechanisms behind the damage in a murine model. I believe that my investigations combined with my clinical background can help discover new ways to improve the quality of life of cardiac arrest survivors.
  
  I have a strong passion for Emergency Medicine and hope to further the translation of discoveries being made at the bench into therapeutic realities for patients. As my next step, I wish to pursue residency training in emergency medicine (EM) and ultimately become a physician-scientist. By combining my passion for EM with my gained scientific expertise, I ultimately aim to contribute to the development of the field EM all the while translating discoveries into clinical practice.