Maryam Valapour, MD

Assistant Professor, Center for Bioethics
Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine
Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine,
              University of Minnesota Medical School

Contact Information 

Dr. Valapour completed her training in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine as well as Bioethics and Health Policy at Johns Hopkins University. She currently holds joint appointments in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota.

Clinical Focus:

Dr. Valapour's clinical practice is focused on the evaluation of lung transplant candidates and the care of lung transplant recipients. 

Research Interests:

Her research interests center around questions of health policy and ethics as they relate to organ transplantation. Her latest projects include:

1. Identifying policy barriers that have prevented living donor lung transplantation from becoming widely available by comparing it to the more widely practiced enterprise of living donor kidney transplantation.
2. Studying the quality of informed consent for living kidney and lung donors.
3. Working on the moral analysis and ethical framework of defining fair and efficient organ allocation systems.

Selected Recent Publications 

Valapour M, Studer SM, Terry PB. Double lung transplantation does not confer a survival advantage over single lung transplantation in COPD.  J Heart Lung Transplant.  2003; 22(1S):S92.

Valapour M.  Ethics of organ distribution in lung transplantation.  Minnesota Medicine.  2004; 87(6):36-7.

Valapour M.  Donation after cardiac death:  consent is the issue – not death.  J  Clin Ethics. 2006; 17(2): 137-8.

Valapour M, Kahn JP, Rogers TB, Bailey RF, Matas AJ.  (2007) Living donors:  What do they understand? Am J Transplantation. 2007; 7(S2): 283.

Valapour M.  Living donor transplantation: the perfect balance of public oversight and medical responsibility. J Clin Ethics.  2007; 18(1):18-20; discussion 21-2. 

Valapour M. The live organ donor's consent: is it informed and voluntary? Transplant Rev (Orlando). 2008; 22(3):196-9. Review.

Valapour M. Caution in expanding role of transplant professionals in assessing living organ donors. Clin Transplant, 2009; 23(2):162-3.

McCurry KR, Shearon TH, Edwards LB, Chan KM, Sweet SC, Valapour M, Yusen R, Murray S. Lung transplantation in the United States, 1998-2007. Am J Transplant. 2009; 9(4 Pt 2):942-58.

Current Grant Support 

NIH/NHLBI K23 HL07210          9/22/2006 - 8/31/2011
Understanding Barriers To Living Donor Lung Transplant
PI

MMF     2009-2011
Designing Effective and Fair Organ Transplant Allocation 
PI

U01-A1069550
Clinical Center-Outcomes of Live Organ Donors 
Co-PI