Baylor recognizes faculty excellence in research with DeBakey Awards
L-R: Drs. Carolyn Smith, Alastair Thompson, Na Li, Anna Maria Mandalakas, Lilei Zhang, Hongjie Li and Paul Klotman.
Six Baylor College of Medicine faculty were honored this year with the Michael E. DeBakey M.D. Award for Excellence in Research for their outstanding published scientific contributions to clinical and basic science research over a three-year period.
The 2025 recipients of the DeBakey Research Awards were Dr. Alastair Thompson, Dr. Anna Mandalakas, Dr. Anthony Maresso, Dr. Hongjie Li, Dr. Lilei Zhang and Dr. Na Li. They were recognized and presented their work at an award ceremony on June 24.
The awards, named in honor of pioneering heart surgeon Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, the first president of Baylor College of Medicine, and sponsored by the DeBakey Medical Foundation, include a commemorative medallion and funds to support further research.
“This is a special and fun day at Baylor College of Medicine, where we can celebrate the people that are leading science at the institution. We are proud of their work, and we appreciate the support of the DeBakey Medical Foundation that allows this to happen,” said Dr. Paul Klotman, Baylor president, CEO and executive dean.
Dr. Carolyn Smith, senior vice president and dean of research, introduced the outstanding awardees before they were presented their medal, followed by brief presentations by each.
Hongjie Li, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor and CPRIT Scholar
Huffington Center on Aging
Department of Molecular and Human Genetics
Dr. Hongjie Li’s research focuses on developing and applying single cell sequencing and multi-omics approaches to study aging. As a postdoctoral associate, he developed the first single-cell RNA-sequencing technique for Drosophila fruit fly. Building on this platform, Hongjie co-led an international collaboration involving 42 fly labs and 158 investigators and established a single-cell transcriptomic map of the entire adult Drosophila.
This Fly Cell Atlas (FCA) is considered a companion to the fly genome project; it was published in Science in 2022 and has been cited more than 570 times. His lab recently established the Aging Fly Cell Atlas (AFCA) that measures aging rate of 163 different cell types across the whole organism. The conservation of fundamental pathways across species makes the AFCA a powerful tool in understanding the aging process in mammals and identifying key targets for aging promotion and disease intervention. The landmark work was published in Science in 2023.
Recently, his lab applied his single-cell sequencing platform to characterize pro-longevity mechanisms in C. elegans and establish the Cell Atlas of Worm in collaboration with Dr. Meng Wang pu. This work was published in Nature Aging in 2024. Further, his lab established Alzheimer’s disease Fly Cell Atlas (AD-FCA) in collaboration with Dr. Hugo Bellen, where they observed distinct effects of Aβ42 and Tau toxic proteins not only in the brain but in the entire organism. This work is recently published in Neuron in 2025
In addition to leading his own multi-disciplinary lab, Li also collaborates with many colleagues in and outside the College. His work has been recognized with several awards, including the Welch Foundation Award in 2023, the Hevolution/AFAR New Investigator Award and the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award in 2024. Li is a Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) Scholar and a member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Na Li, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Medicine, Cardiovascular Research
Li is an internationally recognized leader in cardiac electrophysiology. Her research on inflammatory and molecular signaling pathways in the heart has led to better understanding of atrial fibrillation and other cardiac arrhythmias. Her lab’s work is focused on inflammatory signaling pathways and previously uncharacterized molecular regulators in cardiac tissue with a goal of finding therapeutic targets for arrhythmia.
The Li lab has defined inflammasome signaling – particularly the NLRP3 inflammasome – as a key mediator in atrial fibrillation across various risk factors, including obesity, chronic kidney disease and post-surgical inflammation. In her recent work her team highlighted gasdermin D’s role in mitochondrial dysfunction and calcium dysregulation, positioning the cellular pathway NLRP3-GSDMD as a promising therapeutic target.
Li has pioneered research into FKBP5, revealing its essential role in atrial electrophysiology and remodeling, expanding its impact beyond neurological disease. With more than 90 peer-reviewed publications in premier journals such as Circulation, European Heart Journal, Circulation Research, and The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Li has helped
Anna Maria Mandalakas, M.D., Ph.D., FAAP
Professor and Chief, Division of Global Health
Director, Global Tuberculosis Program
Department of Pediatrics
Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital
For nearly three decades, Dr. Mandalakas’ translational research has focused on identifying ways to prevent, detect, diagnose and treat Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection and tuberculosis (TB) disease in children. TB is typically undetected in young children who are disproportionally affected by the condition and associated death around the world. In the past three years, Dr. Mandalakas ranks among the highest cited researchers in the field of pediatric tuberculosis with landmark clinical and scientific publications. These include over 40 peer-reviewed and PubMed-indexed manuscripts, among them 10 in The Lancet journals in these three years.
In 2024 alone, her innovative and impactful research culminated in three publications within The Lancet series. These studies collectively fill major gaps in research and inform global policy by demonstrating that i) stool-based TB testing captures additional cases of TB disease not detected by sputum-based testing, ii) global TB preventive strategies should embrace a risk-stratified approach that varies according to country-specific TB disease burden, and iii) an innovative model can more accurately predict clinical outcomes than the WHO advanced HIV criteria thereby having the potential to improve the care of children and adolescents with HIV in high-burden settings.
Mandalakas has been awarded more than $12 million from public donors, including the NIH, the CDC and the EU-commission during the past five years to support collaborative field research in six countries of sub-Saharan Africa, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and countries of Eastern Europe. The breadth and depth of her research is expansive. This is exemplified in the CDC-sponsored “Closing TB GAPs – for PLHIV: TB Guidance for Adaptable Patient-Centered Service” project for which she serves as PI. Spanning five sub-Saharan countries, this study is not only evaluating the performance of novel TB screening, diagnostic and preventive strategies in more than 6,000 people with HIV, but also evaluating the cost-effectiveness of these strategies and promoting best practices for evidence dissemination and education.
Mandalakas has served in numerous important roles in organizations including the NIH and the U.S. CDC. She has led several systematic reviews that have informed WHO guideline development for childhood tuberculosis. Her publications have informed clinical guidelines and health policy in more than 20 countries to date.
In addition to being an outstanding researcher, Dr. Mandalakas is passionate about mentoring. Several of her mentees are internationally recognized for their research with important publications of their own.
Anthony William Maresso, Ph.D.
Melnick Endowed Chair and Professor
Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology
Dr. Antony Maresso has significantly advanced the field of virology but also transformed public health with the development of an innovative monitoring program that tracks disease-causing viruses in wastewater. This approach has been adopted by national and state-wide programs to detect outbreaks before they occur.
Maresso has long been conducting basic and applied research on viruses and other microorganisms in wastewater. When the COVID pandemic struck, he saw an opportunity to apply his expertise to revolutionize public health infectious disease tracking. Upon detecting the presence of the COVID virus in Houston wastewater, Maresso realized and later proved that analyzing the viral landscape of human wastewater provides a powerful tool to improve our understanding of outbreaks, transmission and the effects on overall population health, just as one uses meteorological data to better understand and predict weather patterns to anticipate potentially dangerous conditions.
The program has proven to be a valuable source of information for people, health departments, the CDC and the White House teams involved in outbreak preparedness strategies. Furthermore, the program provides key information about emerging viral infections that are not on the clinical radar, such measles, raising awareness of their epidemic and outbreak potential.
Two key research advances were crucial to the development and broad applications of the viral wastewater monitoring program. The first study improved viral detection – instead of detecting one or a few viruses per essay, they used a novel hybrid capture approach that ‘gets’ the entire virome, the collection of all human viruses, in a single test. The second study was one if not the first to report H5N1 bird flu virus in the environment using wastewater analysis. The paper not only showed H5N1 presence in wastewater but revealed how fast the infection spread across Texas, with detection in 10 cities within a month. Using this approach, the team currently records the weekly activity of dozens of concerning viruses and reports the results in the first of its kind sequencing-based health dashboard that is publicly available. https://tephi.texas.gov/early-detection
Houston and BCM are now the epicenter of innovative wastewater science, and Maresso is the lead researcher who put us on the map.
Dr. Maresso earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago, his Ph.D. from Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and completed his postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago.
Alastair Thompson, B.Sc. (Hons), MBChB, M.D., FRCS (Ed)
Professor and Chief, Section of Breast Surgery
Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery
Dr. Alastair Thompson is a clinician scientist whose research has significantly advanced the field of breast cancer treatment. His work spans multidisciplinary patient care, translational “bench to bedside” studies and innovative clinical trials. He has led numerous roles in international drug, radiation therapy and surgical trials, and he currently chairs several phase II and phase III data monitoring committees and trial steering groups.
Thompson’s research has been instrumental in understanding the molecular mechanisms of breast cancer, leading to the development of targeted interventions. He also has led practice-changing adjuvant clinical trials that have refined oncological treatment for early breast cancer, including through de-escalation or omission of chemotherapy or of surgery. He is clinical principal investigator on a CPRIT grant to Perimeter Medical Imaging, in which he is evaluating a high-resolution imaging device that combines tissue imaging with artificial intelligence algorithms to help surgeons assess if they have achieved successful removal of the entire tumor.
Thompson has published more than 450 peer-reviewed publications overall in high-impact journals and 18 within the past three years. They include research on tumor biology and molecular characterization of breast cancer in Nature Genetics and Nature; research on the comparability of alternative treatment strategies in JAMA and the Journal of Clinical Oncology; and the impacts of surgery and radiotherapy on patient outcomes from breast cancer in The BMJ.
Throughout his career, Thompson has been committed to mentoring and developing future clinical and scientific colleagues. His dedication to training the next generation of clinicians and scientists is evident in his numerous leadership roles and contributions to national and international clinical trials initiatives.
Thompson holds the Olga Keith Weiss Chair of Surgery, and he is Breast Cancer Program lead and deputy director at the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Lilei Zhang, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Integrative Physiology and Internal Medicine
Dr. Zhang’s research has focused on circadian regulation in the heart. Her work concentrates on the peripheral circadian network in the heart and bridges the gap between basic research discovery and clinical translation. Additionally, she leads the studies on rare inherited cardiac diseases.
Following her own work on treating heart failure by manipulating circadian clock machinery, Zhang established the essential role of clock regulation in cardiac metabolism and homeostasis.
Zhang also works on developing estrogen-related receptors (ERR) agonists for heart failure treatment. She showed that ERR agonists simultaneously boost fatty acid oxidation and mitochondrial function to enhance cardiac energetics while avoid lipid accumulation and toxicity. Further, ERR agonists provide protection across different stages of heart failure development. This work laid the foundation of developing ERR agonists as a therapy for heart failure treatment.
TANGO2 deficiency disorder (TDD) is an inherited early-lethal disease due to arrhythmia resistant to current standard treatment. Zhang discovered that a simple and benign treatment, folate, can prevent and terminate the lethal arrhythmia in TDD patients. This work has led to immediate changes to the management for TDD patients and changed the course of this otherwise lethal disease.
By Dana Benson
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