Department of Emergency Medicine Research

Christian Dameff, MD  

Dr. Dameff received a $9.5 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) will help the researchers develop better ways to prevent and mitigate ransomware attacks. Dr Dameff also serves as the medical director of cybersecurity for UC San Diego Health, a first-of-its-kind appointment in the United States.

Bingren Hu, MD, PhD 

Over the past 25 years, Dr. Hu has successfully led eight NIH R01s, two VA Merit Awards, one DOD Award, two NIH P50 subprojects, an NIH R21, and several AHA and industry-funded grants. His laboratory specializes in using preclinical animal models to investigate molecular mechanisms and develop treatments for injuries caused by brain ischemia, hypoxia, and hemorrhagic shock. Through a peer-reviewed process, his laboratory was recently selected as one of six U.S. testing centers by the NIH Stroke Pre-Clinical Assessment Network (SPAN). As both a neurologist and scientist, his work aligns with SPAN's focus on late-stage preclinical trials for cerebroprotective interventions using animal stroke models. His research aims to discover novel mechanisms underlying severe brain and systemic injuries caused by emergency conditions—including stroke, cardiac arrest, hemorrhagic shock, and hypoxia—and translate these discoveries into clinically impactful therapies. His research is currently supported by three NIH R01 awards, one NIH U01 award, and one VA Merit Award. For more information, please visit the lab website at emergencymed.ucsd.edu/research/hu-lab. 

Peter Lindholm, MD, PhD 

Dr. Lindholm has a grant from Divers Alert Network (DAN) to study a “new” mechanism for pulmonary edema and/or pulmonary barotrauma in freediving and swimming. This project target competitive freedivers with field studies at competitions such as the current CMAS world championships in Greece and last year’s competition at Deans blue hole in Long Island, Bahamas. 

Dr Gabriel Wardi, MD 

Dr. Wardi was awarded a K23 grant from the National Institutes of Health to improve care and management of sepsis in the Emergency Department.  Specifically, Dr. Wardi will investigate how artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing and other informatics tools and technology can improve the identification and quantification of various subtypes of sepsis to improve treatment and outcomes for patients. 

Dr. Coyne serves as the Director of Clinical Research for the UCSD Department of Emergency Medicine as well as the fellowship director for the Clinical Research Scholar Fellowship. Dr. Coyne became jointly appointed in Radiation Medicine in 2019, with his primary research topic being Oncologic Emergencies. He has published several articles on this topic and is the editor of the Oncologic Emergencies Textbook (Springer). Dr. Coyne serves as chair of the Comprehensive Oncologic Emergencies Research Network (CONCERN) and is the hub PI of the Strategies to Innovate Emergency Care Clinical Trials Network (SIREN).  

Dr. Nene is an assistant professor who works clinically at UCSD and the affiliated hospital at El Centro Regional Medical Center, where he serves as the Research Director for the emergency department. His research interests include social determinants of health, and he serves as site PI for multiple grants through CA Bridge, NIH, and PCORI studying opioid use disorder. He is also interested in equity in access to care, particularly the treatment of low risk isolated mild traumatic brain injury. 

Dr. Childers is an assistant professor who works clinically at UCSD and the affiliated hospital at El Centro Regional Medical Center.   His current research interest is health care services overuse.  Prior publications include work on combat trauma policy and clinical subjects.  He has received research grant support from the Academy of Clinician Scholars. 

Dr. Ford was awarded the National Foundation of Emergency Medicine (NFEM) Scholar Award for his work related to sepsis mortality prediction using machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. Additionally, he is a co-investigator on a large, multicenter grant funded by the University of California Multicampus Research and Initiatives Program grant, which is studying the implementation of a machine learning model used for the early prediction of sepsis. Dr. Ford's future work hopes to use AI to advance precision medicine and ultimately create personalized treatment plans for patients with sepsis.   

Dr. Chen is a board-certified Emergency Medicine physician and Assistant Professor at UC San Diego, where she completed her Emergency Medicine Research Fellowship and is finalizing her T32 Integrative Cardiovascular Epidemiology Fellowship. She was recently selected as the 2025 SW SIREN Emergency Care Trialist Scholar. Her research goal is to develop more precise diagnostic and therapeutic interventions for each stage of sepsis by studying the mechanisms of sepsis and endothelial dysfunction. Her research focuses on the relationship between cardiovascular disease and sepsis, with particular emphasis on microcirculatory dysfunction.