Our Team

Dr. Sukru Emre oversees the activities of Yale-New Haven Transplantation Center and its multidisciplinary group of physicians and caregivers, and continues to offer his specialty, adult and pediatric liver transplantation. Dr. Emre is section chief of transplant surgery and immunology in the department of surgery at Yale School of Medicine.

Dr. Emre received his medical degree from the University of Istanbul where he also completed a residency in general surgery. His clinical post-doctoral training includes completion of a hepatobiliary surgery fellowship at the University of Istanbul and a transplant fellowship at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. He also completed two transplantation research fellowships, one at SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn and another at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. He holds a foreign board certification in general surgery and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

Dr. Emre is an expert in adult and pediatric liver transplantations. He has performed more than 1,500 liver transplants, of which the youngest patient was 16 days old and the oldest was 75 years old. His special interests are performing split-liver transplants (dividing a liver between two recipients thus saving two lives) and living donor transplants which involves transplanting a portion of a donor's healthy liver. He is also expert in hepato-biliary surgery including resection for liver cancer, portal hypertension surgery, repair of complex bile duct injuries and Kasai procedure for biliary atresia. Dr. Emre's research interests include acute liver failure, biliary atresia and rare cholestatic diseases in children, and transplanting adult patients with hepatitis B, C and liver cancer.

Dr. Kulkarni is a multi-organ transplant surgeon specializing in kidney, pancreas and liver transplants. He is the current director of kidney transplant, pancreas transplant and dialysis access services at Yale-New Haven Transplantation Center (YNHTC). Dr. Kulkarni is responsible for the total laparoscopic kidney donation program at Yale-New Haven Hospital--the only center in Connecticut to provide this service, regardless of kidney anatomy.

Dr. Kulkarni has developed a multidisciplinary approach to the complete management of the end-stage renal disease (ESRD) population, starting with close communication with referring physicians regarding dialysis access needs, through patients transplant evaluation and ultimately their transplant.

Dr. Kulkarni's research interests include the role of endothelial cells in graft rejection, complement activation in both kidney and liver transplantation and outcomes research that focus's on methods to improve minority access to transplant services.

Dr. Kulkarni received his M.D. from Medical College of Wisconsin and completed his general surgery training at the University of Chicago, followed by two additional years of transplant research involving single-chain antibody formation and programmed cell death. Dr. Kulkarni served a two-year fellowship in multi-organ transplant surgery at the University of Chicago, with additional living donor liver transplantation experience at the renowned University of Essen Transplant Program. During his transplant surgery fellowship he was accepted into an NIH-funded clinical research training program.

Dr. Kulkarni is a member of the Vascular Biology & Transplant consortium at Yale University and is a participant in investigations looking at animal models of vascular remodeling following ischemic injury. These studies have important implication to kidney transplant patients and how their transplants change over time.

Dr. Rodriguez-Davalos received his medical degree from Anahuac University and graduated with honors from the National University of Mexico in 1996. During medical school, Dr. Rodriguez-Davalos took part in the William J. Harrington Latin American Training Program at the University of Miami's Jackson Memorial Medical Center. He also completed a year of research in Portal Hypertension and Hepatobiliary Surgery at INNSZ, which is part of National Institutes of Health System in Mexico.

Teena Sam, PharmD, BCPS is board certified in Pharmacotherapy. She earned her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from St. John’s University School of Pharmacy in Queens, NY and completed her residency at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, PA. She then went on to finish a specialized year of residency in solid organ transplantation at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Dr. Sam’s clinical interests include immunology and immunosuppressive management of abdominal and thoracic transplant recipients, outcomes research, antibody mediated rejection, liver disease, infectious diseases, hepatitis C management, primary care management of post-transplant patients and organ allocation and donation.

Dr. Yoo is a board-certified surgeon who specializes in abdominal organ transplantation in children and adults. He is appointed as Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at Yale School of Medicine.

A native of New York, Dr. Yoo was an undergraduate at Dartmouth College and earned his medical degree at SUNY Stony Brook School of Medicine. He served as intern, resident, and administrative chief resident in the Department of Surgery at Yale. During residency, he performed a post-doctoral research fellowship examining mediators of angiogenesis in hepatic malignancy and obtained funding from the National Institutes of Health for his work. After residency, Dr. Yoo took advanced training in organ transplantation at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

He specializes in the care of patients with end-stage organ failure including transplantation, post-transplantation immunosuppression, and management of transplant-related infections. At Yale, he is a member of both the liver and kidney live donor transplant teams. Dr. Yoo has expertise in minimally invasive surgery including total laparoscopic donor nephrectomy and is Director of Yale's program in paired kidney exchange. Aside from transplantation, Dr. Yoo's clinical interests include the care of both children and adults with tumors, injuries, and other disorders of the liver and bile ducts, surgical care of patients with polycystic kidneys, and general surgery in pre- and post-transplant patients.

Dr. Yoo's research interests include renal function in patients with liver disease, strategies to refine the determination of compatibility between organs and recipients, and understanding geographic variations in patterns of organ donation. He also directs the educational program in transplantation for medical students and surgical trainees.