George Gittes, MD

Dr. George Gittes is the Director of the Richard King Mellon Foundation Institute for Pediatric Research and Co-Scientific Director at UPMC Children’s Hospital. He is also the hospital’s Surgeon-in-Chief Emeritus. Dr. Gittes received his MD from Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.  He completed his surgical internship and residency at the University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, CA.  He completed a fellowship at the Children’s Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, MO.  Dr. Gittes came to Pittsburgh in 2005 from Children’s Mercy Hospital and the University of Missouri Kansas City School Hospital and the University of Missouri Kansas City School of Medicine, where he held the Thomas M. Holder/Keith W. Ashcraft Chair in Pediatric Surgical Research. He has long been actively involved in mentoring the next generation of scientific researchers. Dr. Gittes’ research interest is in Smad regulation of pancreatic islet formation. Dr. Gittes has received numerous honors and awards, most notably:

• External site visitor, Packard Foundation Oversight of $500,000,000 support of Packard Children’s Hospital research, 2008
• President, Society of University Surgeons, 2005-2006
• NIH Study Section memberships, 2004-2008
• One of four invited outside expert reviewers for the JDF $20 million grant to Harvard for the cure of Diabetes, 1998
• Owen H. Wangensteen, MD, FACS Faculty Research Fellowship of the American College of Surgeons Fellowship ($30,000/yr for 2 years), 1998-2000
• Ross Laboratories Resident Award for paper entitled “Initiation of Gastrin Expression During Development of the Mouse Pancreas,” 1992
• First Prize, Resident Research Competition, University of California, San Francisco, 1992
• First Prize, Resident Research Competition, University of California, San Francisco, 1991
• NIH GI Training Grant, University of California, San Francisco, 1990-1992
• Cum Laude, Harvard Medical School, 1987
• John Harvard Scholar, Harvard College, 1981 & 1982

His current professional activities include involvement with:

• American Academy of Pediatrics, Surgical Section, Fellow
• American College of Surgeons, Fellow
• American Diabetes Association
• American Pediatric Surgical Association
• American Society for Clinical Investigation
• American Society of Cell Biology
• American Surgical Association
• Association for Academic Surgery
• Board of Trustees, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Foundation
• British Association of Pediatric Surgeons
• Pacific Association of Pediatric Surgeons
• Plastic Surgery Research Council
• Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract
• Society of University Surgeons
• Southern Surgical Association

View a list of Dr. Gittes’ publications here.