Vaughn A. Starnes, MD

Vaughn A. Starnes, MD, is Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the Department of Surgery, H. Russell Smith Foundation Chair and Executive Director of the CardioVascular Thoracic Institute at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California.

He earned his medical degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and did his general surgery training at Vanderbilt University, where he also completed two years of research in cardiothoracic physiology and pharmacology.

Dr. Starnes completed two years at Stanford University as a resident in cardiovascular surgery, and one year as chief resident in cardiac transplantation. He accepted a fellowship in pediatric cardiovascular surgery at the Hospital for Sick Children in London. When he returned to Stanford, he was appointed director of Stanford's heart-lung transplantation program. In 1990, Dr. Starnes performed the world's first lobar transplant using a lung segment from a living donor. Three years later, he performed the first live-donor, double-lobar lung transplant on a patient with cystic fibrosis. The operation involved taking lung tissue from each parent and transplanting it into their child.

He joined USC in July 1992 and was appointed Chairman of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery in 1997. Dr. Starnes has an ongoing interest in congenital heart disease, heart, lung, heart-lung and living related lung transplantation, coronary bypass grafting, and repair and replacement of the valves of the heart. He is also involved in research, helping develop gene therapy techniques to address the problem of restenosis following balloon angioplasty.

As the founding executive director of the USC CardioVascular Thoracic Institute, Dr. Starnes has built an innovative, interdisciplinary powerhouse, comprised of clinicians and basic scientists who are exploring better and more innovative ways of treating heart disease. Under his leadership, USC surgeons have conducted more than 15, 000 open heart surgeries to repair and replace valves or create coronary artery bypasses, and more than 10,000 surgeries for diseases of the lungs, esophagus and chest wall.

He and his surgical team also performed Southern California's first robotic heart operation in 2001 as part of the clinical trial evaluating the use of a remote surgical system. In addition to his clinical work, Dr. Starnes is a distinguished researcher. He has an ongoing interest in many areas of research, including congenital heart disease, cadaveric and live-donor organ transplantation, coronary bypass grafting, and repair and replacement of heart valves.

He is also involved in bench research helping develop gene therapy techniques to address problems that occur after balloon angioplasty procedures. Dr. Starnes is currently investigating the use of gene therapy to prevent scarring following heart surgery.

He is also involved in a clinical trial using robotic surgery technology for cardiothoracic surgery.

Also, Dr. Starnes is the Vice President of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery. He is the 100th president of the AATS in 2019-2020.