Harvard Catalyst Profiles

Dr. Ozaki was recruited out of his training to the University of Florida in 1997 primarily to serve as an academic clinical vascular surgeon and to build the vascular research program. His clinical and teaching expertise is largely complex open carotid, aortic, and lower extremity arterial surgery. By 2000 he ascended to Chief, Vascular Surgery at the Malcom Randall VAMC, and under his direction the Section built case volume while consistently earning high ratings in quality assessments such as the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program and resident teaching evaluations. Then in 2006 he was promoted to Chief, Surgical Service for the North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System, where his push for excellence in surgical throughput and quality continued. This complex institution stands as one of the largest VA Systems in the nation, and he supervised more than one hundred employees on his Service. Simultaneously during his eleven years in Florida he built the Vascular Surgery research program to the point of five well-funded investigators (four by the National Institutes of Health). Dr. Ozaki’s basic research efforts broadly aim to delineate the mechanisms by which physical forces alter the morphology of the blood vessel wall. He holds expertise specifically in the adaptations of the vein bypass graft, an extreme example of acute perturbation of the hemodynamic environment combined with vascular trauma. His recent investigative efforts have focused on inflammatory driven mechanisms of these adaptations. Future research directions will expand (in both animal models and humans) this foundation of knowledge via enhanced in vivo imaging of the blood vessel wall, and robust analyses of the longitudinal interplay between local hemodynamic factors and biologic mediators such as adipose tissue. In 2008 he was recruited to the Brigham and Women’s Hospital to serve as the Director, Vascular Surgery Research and to function as a clinician in the new constructed Shapiro Cardiovascular Center.