Gaurav Sharma, Ph.D. Titles and Appointments Assistant Professor Schools Medical School | Graduate School Departments Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgery | Advanced Imaging Research Center | Biomedical Engineering Graduate Programs Biomedical Engineering Biography Download Curriculum Vitae Gaurav Sharma, PhD, MBA, FACC, FCVS, FAHA, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center, with secondary appointments in Biomedical Engineering and the Advanced Imaging Research Center. His work sits at the crossroads of metabolic imaging, artificial intelligence, and cardiovascular medicine. His academic training spans continents and disciplines. He earned a B.Sc. in biological sciences and an M.Sc. in biotechnology before completing a PhD in biomedical sciences at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi, one of India's most prestigious research institutions. He later added an MBA from the Quantic School of Business and Technology, reflecting an equally serious commitment to translating science into institutional practice. The Sharma Lab operates across three integrated research areas, each designed to address a different dimension of cardiovascular disease and transplant medicine. This program is supported by the American Heart Association, the Josephine Hughes Sterling Foundation, and institutional endowments. The first is advanced metabolic imaging. The lab applies hyperpolarized 13C MRI (HP 13C-MRI) and stable-isotope carbon-13 tracer methods to visualize cardiac metabolism in living tissue and human patients with a level of metabolic information that conventional nuclear medicine imaging cannot match. This work is the foundation of two extramurally funded clinical trials for which Dr. Sharma serves as principal investigator. The first evaluates HP 13C-MRI as a tool for assessing myocardial viability in patients with heart disease. The second combines HP 13C-MRI with FDG-PET imaging in ischemic cardiomyopathy, pairing modalities to generate a more complete picture of cardiac function and tissue health than either approach provides alone. The second area is advanced multi-omics. The Sharma Lab integrates transcriptomics and stable isotope resolved metabolomics datasets to map the molecular landscape of heart failure, ischemic heart disease, and donor organ biology. In transplant medicine, this multi-omics approach supports the lab's work on optimizing perfusion solutions and hypothermic machine perfusion strategies for donor hearts and lungs, research aimed at expanding the available donor pool and improving long-term graft survival. The third area is Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in medicine. The lab applies machine learning to heart and lung transplantation and other areas of cardiovascular medicine, with the goal of supporting surgeons and cardiologists in clinical decision-making. This work is tightly integrated with cardiothoracic surgical practice at UT Southwestern, enabling findings to move from bench to bedside and back. Dr. Sharma's contributions to cardiovascular science have been recognized through three elected fellowship distinctions. He is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology (FACC), a Fellow of the Cardiovascular Section of the American Physiological Society (FCVS), and a Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA). These designations reflect sustained contributions to cardiovascular research, peer recognition across scientific and clinical communities, and a long-standing commitment to advancing the field. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation: Open, Journal of Translational Medicine, NPJ Imaging, and NPJ Cardiovascular Health. He reviews manuscripts for more than 50 journals and participates as a reviewer on study panels for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the American Heart Association (AHA), UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). A sought-after speaker on metabolic imaging and AI-driven cardiovascular diagnostics, Dr. Sharma is driven by a clear translational ambition: to turn scientific advances in cardiac metabolism and machine learning into tools that improve real decisions for real patients. Education Graduate School All India Inst of Medical Sci , Biomedical Sciences Graduate School Quantic School Business & Tech , Business Administration Research Interest Advanced Multi-omics Cardiovascular & Metabolic Diseases Donor organ preservation Explainable AI (XAI) in Medicine Hyperpolarized Carbon-13 Metabolic Imaging Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy/Imaging (MRS/I) Metabolic Flux Analysis Metabolomics and Transcriptomics NMR and MS metabolomics Stable Isotope Tracers for Assessing Metabolism in vivo and ex vivo Publications Featured Publications Development and Validation of a Hybrid Machine Learning Model to Predict Lung Transplant Outcomes. Sharma G, Kamal VK, Bollineni S, Timofte I, Plasencia JD, Lesaja S, Kaza V, Keshavamurthy S, Murala J, Peltz M, Jessen ME, JAMA Netw Open 2025 Nov 8 11 e2545369 Metabolic and Transcriptomic Insights into Controlled Hypothermic Preservation of Human Donor Hearts. Sharma G, Vela RJ, Powell L, Deja S, Fu X, Burgess SC, Malloy CR, Jessen ME, Peltz M, J Heart Lung Transplant 2025 Mar Deteriorated biomechanical properties of human hypertrophied septum in response to cardiomyocyte enlargement, overexpressed collagen, and disarrayed microstructures. Copeland KM, Chen H, Chintapula U, Almasian M, Chung DK, Taylor AM, Ding Y, Sharma G, Jessen ME, Hong Y, Nguyen KT, Peltz M, Bajona P, Liao J, Front Bioeng Biotechnol 2025 13 1620594 Recent Advances Associated with Cardiometabolic Remodeling in Diabetes-induced Heart Failure. Sharma G, Chaurasia SS, Carlson MA, Mishra PK, Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 2024 Oct Glycerol as a precursor for hepatic de novo glutathione synthesis in human liver. Jin ES, Malloy CR, Sharma G, Finn E, Fuller KNZ, Reyes YG, Lovell MA, Derderian SC, Schoen JA, Inge TH, Cree MG, Redox Biol 2023 Jul 63 102749 Oxidation of hyperpolarized [1-13 C]pyruvate in isolated rat kidneys. Sharma G, Maptue N, Rahim M, Mijes MLT, Hever T, Wen X, Funk AM, Malloy CR, Young JD, Khemtong C, NMR Biomed 2022 Oct e4857 Co-Polarized [1-13C]Pyruvate and [1,3-13C2]Acetoacetate Provide a Simultaneous View of Cytosolic and Mitochondrial Redox in a Single Experiment. Sharma G, Wen X, Maptue NR, Hever T, Malloy CR, Sherry AD, Khemtong C, ACS Sens 2021 11 6 11 3967-3977 PKM1 Exerts Critical Roles in Cardiac Remodeling Under Pressure Overload in the Heart. Li Q, Li C, Elnwasany A, Sharma G, An YA, Zhang G, Elhelaly WM, Lin J, Gong Y, Chen G, Wang M, Zhao S, Dai C, Smart CD, Liu J, Luo X, Deng Y, Tan L, Lv SJ, Davidson SM, Locasale JW, Lorenzi PL, Malloy CR, Gillette TG, Vander Heiden MG, Scherer PE, Szweda LI, Fu G, Wang ZV, Circulation 2021 08 144 9 712-727 Real-time hyperpolarized 13C magnetic resonance detects increased pyruvate oxidation in pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 2/4-double knockout mouse livers. Sharma G, Wu CY, Wynn RM, Gui W, Malloy CR, Sherry AD, Chuang DT, Khemtong C, Sci Rep 2019 Nov 9 1 16480 Metabolism of hyperpolarized 13 C-acetoacetate to ?-hydroxybutyrate detects real-time mitochondrial redox state and dysfunction in heart tissue. Chen W, Sharma G, Jiang W, Maptue NR, Malloy CR, Sherry AD, Khemtong C, NMR Biomed 2019 Apr e4091 Results 1-10 of 29 1 2 3 Next Last Honors & Awards Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA) (2026) Fellow of the Cardiovascular Section of the American Physiological Society (FCVS) (2025) American Heart Association CVSA Early Career Investigator Abstract Award Finalist (2024) Fellow of the American College of Cardiology (FACC) (2024) Awarded 1st place in Poster Presentation at Annual Symposium of In vivo Center of Metabolism (2019-2019) Postdoctoral Fellowship from American Heart Association (2018-2020) Educational stipend from the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (2017-2017) International Travel Award from Indian Council of Medical Research (2014) Educational stipend from the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (2013-2013) Predoctoral Fellowships (Junior and Senior Research Fellowships) from Indian Council of Medical Research (2010-2015) Professional Associations/Affiliations American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (2016) American College of Cardiology (ACC) (2024) American Heart Association (AHA) (2018) American Physiological Society (APS) (2023) International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) (2022) International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) (2013) Radiological Society of North America (2024) World Molecular Imaging Society (WMIC) (2013)
