The gala awards ceremony was held on October 17, 2021. This year's edition received over 400 submissions. There were 15 people in the final round. The awards were given in five categories: humanities, social sciences, life sciences, sciences, technical sciences.
“Science meets clinical activity in many places. It is scientific activity that drives progress in surgery”- these words of Prof. Michał Grąt are the motto of his activities so far.
Professor Michał Grąt is a graduate of our University. He is an outstanding clinician, surgeon and scientist. He began his research activities while still at university. He received many valuable awards, such as: Diamond Grant or Doctor Wacław Mayzel Medical Laurel awarded by the Polish Academy of Sciences. From the beginning, he focused mainly on topics related to liver and biliary tract surgery. In 2013, nearly a year after the graduation, he received his PhD. The research that formed the basis of his doctoral dissertation allowed him to develop new international criteria for selecting patients with hepatocellular carcinoma for liver transplantation. He received his postdoctoral degree in 2016 and his professorial appointment last year.
“My academic work is very closely linked to my clinical work. I look for factors that affect the outcome of our surgical treatment, both technical factors so that we can perform better surgeries and biological factors so that we can better predict the outcome of oncologic treatment of patients with liver and biliary cancers” - says Prof. Michał Grąt.
The professor is the author of numerous innovative studies on treatment and pathogenesis of liver cancer and cirrhosis. Scientific output of Prof. Grąt exceeds 190 IF points. He was the first in the world to prove a direct link between ischemia-reperfusion injury of the liver and the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma recurrence after surgery.
“I was able to introduce a program of large laparoscopic liver resections in the Department, i.e., the use of minimally invasive technique to perform advanced liver surgeries, which led to a significant reduction in the length of hospitalization of patients after these surgeries, a reduced risk of complications, and less pain after these surgeries” - says Prof. Michał Grąt, who has performed many pioneering procedures. For the first time in Poland, he performed laparoscopic right hemihepatectomy in a patient with a rare aggressive liver cancer with features of hepatocellular carcinoma and cholangiocarcinoma. He also performed the first in Poland extended right hemihepatectomy using laparoscopic technique after prior hepatic vein embolization. He pays special attention to the development of the laparoscopic liver resection program at the Medical University of Warsaw.
Another important field of activity of Prof. Michał Grąt is striving to minimize postoperative infections. He led the Department to conduct the world's first study demonstrating an abdominal closure technique that reduces the risk of surgical wound infections.
“In the long run, we want to lead to the use of such a technique, which will significantly reduce the number of frequent hernias in postoperative scars," he adds.
The results of another study, in which Professor Michał Grąt and his team participated, showed for the first time in the world the benefits for the patient of taking probiotics in the period before liver transplantation.
“Probiotic supplementation in the period preceding liver transplantation led to a reduction in the degree of post-transplant organ damage associated with ischemia and significantly reduced the risk of infections to which transplant patients are exposed," explains Professor Michał Grąt.
In 2020, Prof. Michal Grąt became Director of the MUW Doctoral School.
Fot. Leszek Zych