The American Society for Clinical Investigation Young Physician-Scientist Awards (YPSA) recognize physician-scientists who are early in their first faculty appointment and have made notable achievements in their research.
Cheryl L. Maier, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the Medical Director for the Special Coagulation Laboratory at Emory University School of Medicine. She joined Emory’s faculty in January 2020 and secured extramural funding from NIH/NHLBI as the recipient of a K99/R00 career development award studying platelet immunology. With the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, Dr. Maier led a multidisciplinary care team that reported the novel observation of blood hyperviscosity in critically ill COVID-19 patients, and served as the Principle Investigator for a randomized controlled trial on the role of therapeutic plasma exchange as an intervention for COVID-associated coagulopathy. She spent the next 3 years investigating drivers of severe COVID-19 and uncovered a unique mechanism by which pathologically-elevated fibrinogen induces red blood cell aggregates that mechanically injure the vascular endothelium. Her laboratory continues to investigate mechanisms and mitigators of disease pathology at the interface of the immune and hemostatic systems, including thromboinflammation associated with acute viral infection, sepsis, stroke and malignancy.