Nimrat Grewal, MD, PhD

Professor Dr. Nimrat Grewal is a board-certified cardiothoracic surgeon and physician-scientist specialized in aortic surgery, with a Professor (Adjunct) appointment in Cardiac Surgery at Yale School of Medicine and at Amsterdam University Medical Center. Her program integrates a clinical practice in thoracic aortic surgery with translational research on the pathogenesis and risk stratification of thoracic aortic aneurysm and dissection (TAAD).

She received her MD cum laude from VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, and her PhD from the Department of Anatomy and Embryology and Cardiothoracic Surgery, Leiden University Medical Center, where she characterized the developmental and molecular basis of bicuspid aortic valve (BAV)–associated aortopathy. This work framed the aortic wall in BAV and heritable thoracic aortic disease (HTAD) as a developmentally immature, prematurely degenerative tissue, implicating impaired vascular smooth muscle cell maturation, altered TGF-β signaling, and epicardial– and neural crest–derived contributions to medial degeneration.

Her current research applies an integrated multi-omic strategy to identify the genetic and cellular determinants of aortic wall failure and to define actionable targets for pharmacologic therapy. Her TARGet Biobank consists of a longitudinally annotated collection of more than 1,000 aortic tissue, cell, and blood specimens that she founded and subsequently scaled into the department-wide, nationally and internationally distributed IHLCN biobank infrastructure. She combines genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and rare- and structural-variant analysis with single-nucleus RNA sequencing to resolve disease-associated genes and cell states within the aortic media. Candidate loci and pathways are then interrogated functionally in patient-derived and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)–derived vascular smooth muscle cell models, enabling both refinement of individualized risk stratification and pathway-based discovery of candidate drug compounds for a disease currently managed by prophylactic surgical replacement alone.

She is Principal Investigator of GEN-TAAD, one of the largest international genetic consortia in thoracic aortic disease, and of APECx, a global clinical-trial platform spanning more than 60 centers across 35 countries that characterizes international variation in cardiac surgical, anesthetic, and perfusion practice. She additionally leads fundamental, genetic, and clinical-trial projects and directs the TRAIN Health Awareness platform (www.trainhealthawareness.com) for cardiovascular prevention. She serves as the Dutch national expert for HTAD within the European VASCERN network and co-leads the Dutch National Aortic Expertise Center. Her program is committed to open science and patient data donation, and her funding includes the Dutch Heart Foundation Dekker Senior Clinical Scientist Award, of which she was the first cardiothoracic surgeon recipient, among millions of euros in competitive support.

Her work emphasizes equity and co-creation with patients: study design incorporates patient input through the TRAIN platform and the Dutch Aortic Dissection Association, and her cohorts deliberately include women and ethnic-minority populations historically underrepresented in cardiovascular research. As one of the few women in cardiothoracic surgery, she mentors students, residents, PhD candidates, and junior faculty and is committed to a more inclusive surgical and scientific community.