Congratulations to the 2025 Finalists! 

Top Clinical Research Presentations

• Incidence of Postoperative Urinary Retention Following Neuromuscular Block Reversal with Neostigmine and Glycopyrrolate versus Sugammadex in Patients Undergoing Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy
  • Margaret Vo, BS, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX
• Real-time Assessment of Cerebral Autoregulation by Monitoring the Relationship between Mean Arterial Pressure and Cerebral Oxygen Saturation
  • Brennan Schneider, MS, BD Advanced Patient Monitoring

Top Basic Science Presentations

• PTRF Promotes Remifentanil-Induced Spinal Central Sensitization by Regulating the Cav-1/NR2B Signaling Pathway
  • Fengxiang Song, MD, General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University, Ningxia, China
• Astrocytes enhance the synaptic transmission between VTA GABASST and DA neurons to induce depression in chronic neuropathic pain in mice
  • Mengchan Ou, MD, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China

Top Scholars Presentations

• Is poor performance on ultra-rapid cognitive screening tools associated with clinical outcomes? Findings from the Detection of Cognitive Impairment (Detect CI) study.
  • Ellene Yan, HBSc, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
• Intraoperative Hypotension and Risk of Inaccuracy of Non-invasive Cuff-based Blood Pressure Measurements: A Large Intraoperative Cohort Study
  • Sohee Kwon, MD, MPH, UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA

The Kosaka Best Abstract Awards are awarded to the top scoring abstracts submitted to the IARS Annual Meeting in three categories: Clinical Research, Basic Science, or Scholars.  Three (3) Top Finalists will be selected in each category and present during the Kosaka Best Abstract Session (5 minute talk, 3 minute Q&A, 5 slide max). The finalists will receive a $50 prize and one winner from each category will receive $500.

Kosaka Clinical and Basic Science award winners will receive complimentary registration and a $1,000 travel stipend to attend the 2026 Annual Meeting, May 1-3, 2026 in Montreal, Canada.

The Kosaka Best Abstract Awards are supported by the Japan Society for Clinical Anesthesia (JSCA) and the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS). The founder of the JSCA, Dr. Futami Kosaka, started a cooperative relationship with IARS in 1990 and developed the foundation for today’s Kosaka Best Abstracts Session.

The abstract:

• Must be submitted to the IARS Annual Meeting.
• Must be submitted in Clinical Research, Basic Science or Scholars.

The presenting author indicated in the abstract submission:

• Will receive the prize.
• Is not required to have an active IARS Membership.
• For the scholars category, author must be junior faculty member within the first six years of faculty appointment at the instructor or assistant professor level.

The abstract must be presented during the Kosaka Best Abstracts Session at the IARS Annual Meeting.

Top Finalists will receive:

• $50 gift certificate and a certificate of recognition at the Annual Meeting

One winner from each category will receive:

• $500 and a plaque after the IARS Annual Meeting

The Basic and Clinical Winners will receive a complimentary registration to the following year’s Annual Meeting and a $1000 travel stipend should they attend.

View the entire list of past Kosaka Award winners here.

The travel grant will provide awardees with complimentary meeting registration and a $1,000 to $5,000 U.S. stipend based on the economic classification of their country of origin as defined by The World Bank.

Applicants must:

• Be a current IARS member,
• Be located in a low-income, lower-middle-income or upper-middle-income country,
• Have submitted an abstract to the 2025 Annual Meeting,
• Be an early-career or mid-career investigator,
• Be pursuing a career that involves research,
• Be conducting research related to anesthesiology or perioperative medicine, and
• Be connected directly or collaboratively to an anesthesia department.

The Junior Faculty Travel Award in Pediatric Anesthesia is awarded to the top scoring abstract in the area of pediatric anesthesia by an early-stage faculty in an academic anesthesiology department within the first six years of faculty appointment at the instructor or assistant professor level. The awardee will receive a $500 prize and a certificate.

The Junior Faculty Travel Award in Perioperative Medicine is awarded to the top scoring abstract in the area of perioperative medicine by an early-stage faculty in an academic anesthesiology department within the first six years of faculty appointment at the instructor or assistant professor level. The awardee will receive a $500 prize and a certificate.

The abstract:

• Must be submitted in the areas of pediatric anesthesia or perioperative medicine.
• Must be presented as a poster presentation during the meeting.

The presenting author indicated in the abstract submission:

• Must be an early-stage faculty in an academic anesthesiology department within the first six years of faculty appointment at the instructor or assistant professor level.
• Will receive the prize.

Congratulations to the 2024 Winners

Perioperative Medicine: Identification of Frailty from Clinical Notes Among Surgical Patients Using Large Language Models

YingQiu K Zhou, MD, University of California San Diego

Pediatric Medicine: Effects of different anesthetics on the esophageal contractile response during functional lumen imaging probe topography

Erin Toaz, MD, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago

• $500 and certificate after the Annual Meeting