Adjunct faculty typically have an academic or research appointment at another institution and contribute or collaborate with one or more School of Medicine faculty members or programs.
Adjunct rank detailsNimrat Grewal, MD, PhD
Associate Professor Adjunct of Surgery (Cardiac)About
Research
Overview
Professor Grewal's research program spans the full translational arc of thoracic aortic aneurysm and dissection (TAAD), from molecular mechanism to individualized prediction, equitable infrastructure, and long-term recovery.
Its foundation is the genetic and cellular dissection of aortic wall failure. Through GEN-TAAD, an international genetic consortium, and complementary programs such as GENIE-TA (whole-genome sequencing with epigenomic annotation in young patients without an identified mutation), AGENT-TAD (genome-wide discovery beyond the recognized syndromes), and UNRAVEL-GEN (fundamental study of vessel-wall weakening), she is mapping the monogenic, polygenic, and structural-variant architecture of the disease. These findings are resolved at cellular resolution by single-nucleus RNA sequencing of the aortic media and interrogated functionally in patient-derived and induced pluripotent stem cell–derived vascular smooth muscle cell models, which she uses both to validate candidate pathways and to screen for compounds able to arrest aneurysm progression. Related work extends this lens across vascular beds through an integrative genomic and cellular analysis of shared and distinct mechanisms in coronary, abdominal, and thoracic aortic disease, and through studies of the sex-specific mechanisms underlying the male predominance of bicuspid aortic valve aortopathy.
A second line translates these insights into precision risk stratification and clinical decision-making that move beyond aortic diameter, including ICRPA (a multi-omics and clinical decision-support approach to personalized risk stratification), polygenic risk modeling, the GENIALITY trial for prevention of postoperative atrial fibrillation, and APECx, a global platform spanning more than 60 centers across 35 countries that characterizes international variation and socioeconomic and sex-based disparities in surgical, anesthetic, and perfusion practice. Artificial-intelligence and real-world-data efforts, among them Rehab@AI, biosensor-based monitoring, and large-scale analyses of elective cardiac-surgery outcomes, further support data-driven prediction and care.
Underpinning this work is a commitment to shared, inclusive research infrastructure and open science. The TARGet Biobank, which she founded and scaled into the department-wide IHLCN infrastructure, is complemented by national and inclusive data-donation initiatives such as HEART-NL, OPEN HEARTS, and INCLUDE, and supported by successive awards championing responsible data sharing and patient data donation.
Equity is a defining theme. Through Heart for Women, Reducing Health Inequalities, culturally tailored and health-literacy–based care in thoracic aortopathy, community prevention programs for people with a migration background, citizen-science studies, and the deliberate inclusion of underrepresented groups and aortic cohorts, she works to close longstanding representation gaps in cardiovascular research.
Finally, her program addresses prevention and survivorship, care beyond the operation. The TRAIN Health Awareness platform delivers personalized primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention, and patient co-created interventions support psychosocial recovery after dissection, including After the Storm and Rust na de Storm (hypervigilance and quality of life), a digital narrative-rehabilitation application, the THRIVE program for living with chronic pain, and physical-activity and nature-based wellbeing initiatives.