34th Annual Duke Anesthesiology Academic Evening

Duke Anesthesiology is proud to announce the 34th Annual Academic Evening — a distinguished event commemorating scientific excellence and scholarly activity within our department. As the pinnacle of our research endeavors, this celebration gathers junior-level investigators and faculty to share the results of their research pursuits, spanning diverse areas of study including basic and translational science, clinical research, population health research, case reports, and quality improvement projects. Moreover, Academic Evening serves as a catalyst for fostering new collaborations and partnerships among our esteemed colleagues.

As we reflect upon more than three decades of progress since our event’s inception, the steadfast goal of Academic Evening remains unchanged — to propel forward and showcase discovery in the field of anesthesiology, critical care, and pain management, ultimately enhancing the care of our patients.

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Max B. Kelz, MD, PhD

President and CSO, Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER)
Lee A. Fleisher, MD, Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care
Vice Chair for Research, Department of Anesthesiology & Critical Care
University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Max Kelz is the president and chief scientific officer of the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research, as well as the Lee A. Fleisher Professor and vice chair for research in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a practicing neuroanesthesiologist whose research was inspired by a case of delayed emergence he encountered during residency, when a narcoleptic patient took more than six hours to regain consciousness after receiving an anesthetic that should have worn off within minutes.

Dr. Kelz began to investigate where and how general anesthetics exert their hypnotic effects. His work was among the first to challenge the idea that emergence from anesthesia is merely a passive, mechanistic reversal of induction. His studies in mice genetically engineered to develop postnatal narcolepsy demonstrated that the neuronal events enabling recovery of consciousness can differ from those responsible for entering the anesthetic state.

The Kelz lab also discovered that the brain contains intrinsic mechanisms to track whether it is awake or unconscious, and it attempts to resist changes in arousal state — a process known as neural inertia. He has shown that the basic mechanisms underlying this hysteresis are highly conserved across species, including fruit flies, zebrafish, mice and humans. His findings have implications for understanding how cognition returns in humans emerging from general anesthesia.