INDIANAPOLIS - This past Thursday, May 23, 2024, we celebrated the investiture of Dr. Troy Markel as the James A. Madura Professor of Surgery. The event, held at Tinker House Events, was a wonderful occasion marked by speeches from Dr. Karl Bilimoria, Chair of the Department of Surgery, Dr. Frederick Rescorla, and Dr. Troy Markel himself.
The evening was attended by many from the Pediatrics division, research colleagues, Dr. Markel’s NEC mentor Dr. Mervin Yoder, and his cherished family. Dr. Markel was selected for this prestigious role given his dedication and commitment to academic and research excellence. An investiture of professorship is a distinguished recognition of an individual's commitment to their field in academia, funded through an endowment honoring a prominent individual's legacy.
Program Highlights and Speaker Lineup
The Investiture of
Troy A. Markel, MD
as the James A. Madura Professor of Surgery
Thursday, May 23, 2024
Tinker House Events
6pm – 8pm
Karl Bilimoria, MD, MS
Jay Grosfeld Professor of Surgery
Chair, Department of Surgery,
Indiana University School of Medicine
Executive Director, Surgical Outcomes and
Quality Improvement Center (SOQIC)
Frederick J. Rescorla, MD
Professor Emeritus of Surgery
Anna Olivia Healey Professor Emeritus of Pediatric Surgery
Troy A. Markel, MD
James A. Madura Professor of Surgery
Vice-Chair, Department of Surgery-Research
Adjunct Professor, Department of Anatomy,
Cell Biology and Physiology
Associate Vice Chair of Clinical Research, Riley Institute
for Child Health Research
Program Director, General Surgery Resident Research
Troy A. Markel, MD, is an Associate Professor of Surgery in the Division of Pediatric Surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine. Originally from Hanover, Pennsylvania, he graduated from Southwestern High School in 1996. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology, with minors in Psychology and Chemistry, from the University of Delaware, where he was an active member of the Blue Hen Marching Band drumline and the Blue Hen Ambassador program. Subsequently, he attended Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania, obtaining his medical degree in 2004. During his time at Penn State, he collaborated with Dr. Larry Sinoway, a cardiologist in the Department of Medicine, to publish his first paper in Circulation, focusing on how age impacts the exercise pressor reflex in humans.
Following medical school, Troy pursued General Surgery residency training at IU. During this period, he also pursued a Basic Science Research Fellowship under the mentorship of Dr. Dan Meldrum, where he studied stem cell biology and various therapies for ischemic cardiac disease. This laid the groundwork for his own lab after completing his training. Troy was fortunate to receive an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA F32 award, as well as the Loan Repayment Program award from the NIH during his research fellowship. He completed the IU/Riley Pediatric Surgery Fellowship program in 2013 and joined the faculty at Riley Hospital upon graduation, under the mentorship of Dr. Merv Yoder, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Pediatrics.
Troy maintains an active basic and translational science lab, focusing on novel therapies and instrumentation tools for the diagnosis and treatment of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a disease affecting the intestines of premature newborns. He has concentrated on the use of stem cell therapy for the acute treatment of NEC, as well as its long-term intestinal and neurodevelopmental sequelae. His team’s research has revealed that hydrogen sulfide gas is a crucial mediator released by stem cells to promote dilation of the intestinal blood vessels. Currently, he collaborates with Ossium Health, an Indianapolis-based stem cell company, as well as Cynata Therapeutics in Australia, to bring stem cell therapy to fragile infants with NEC.
Since 2018, Troy has been funded by the NIH, receiving his K08 in 2018 and later his R01 in April 2023. He has also received support from the Thrasher and Gerber Foundations, the Showalter Trust, and the American College of Surgeons via their Clowe’s Memorial Career Development Award. Additionally, he has partnered with investigators from UNC Chapel Hill on a Chan Zuckerberg grant to create a single-cell map for normal and diseased NEC tissue. Troy serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the NEC Society, a leading non-profit organization dedicated to “Building a World Without NEC,” where he has helped shape policy surrounding the use of human milk products and probiotics in NICUs across the country.
In 2023, Troy was appointed Vice Chair of Research within the Department of Surgery, where he works with departmental and IU School of Medicine leadership to develop and execute the research mission of the department. He is actively involved in recruiting nationally reputable surgeon scientists to the department, developing evaluation tools and funding streams for the department’s trainees, increasing surgeon-specific industry-sponsored trials, and facilitating the navigation of the department’s basic and translational science investigators to a new collaborative lab space. Troy is set to be promoted to Full Professor in July 2024.
Outside of his professional life, Troy married his wife, Sarah, in 2018. Together, they have seven children: Kayla (24), Austin (17), Thomas (17), Owen (15), Mason (13), Bentley (2), and Thea (1). Their family is actively engaged in their children’s sports and extracurricular activities, and in their free time, they enjoy traveling, skiing, and spending time on the lake.
The James A. Madura Professorship in Surgery was named for Dr. James A. Madura, a general surgeon who also served as an Army captain and surgeon in the Vietnam War. Dr. James A. Madura received a BA degree from Colgate University in 1959, with honors in mathematics. He received his medical degree from Case-Western Reserve University in 1963 and went on to complete a surgical residency at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He became an NIH Surgical Trainee and did a year of research in the Department of Immunology at Duke University in 1968 before joining the Indiana University School of Medicine in 1971 as an Assistant Professor. He moved up the ranks to the position of Professor of Surgery in 1981. He was passionate about his role of teaching medical students and residents and led the surgical residency program for many years. He was named Clinical Professor of the Year by numerous graduating senior classes and was formally named the J. Stanley Battersby Professor of Surgery in March of 2001. He was a member of the Central Surgical Association, the Western Surgical Association, the Midwest Surgical Society, and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract, as well as having served as Governor of the American College of Surgeons.
