Keynote Speakers

José L. Balibrea, M.D., Ph.D.

(Welcome Session, Thursday, May 31, 09:00-09:15)

- Professor of Surgery
- Autonomous University of Barcelona
- Dean, Faculty of Medicine
- Complutense University of Madrid
- Chairman, Department of Surgery
- Professor Emeritus
- Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Salamanca
- Honorary Fellow, American College of Surgeons
- Honorary Fellow, American Surgical Association
- Honorary Fellow, Towarzystwo Chirurgow Polskich
- Honorary Fellow, Medico-Surgical Spanish Academy
- President, Spanish Association of Surgeons
- President, Spanish Federation of Medical Scientific Associations
- Founder Member of the Spanish Society of Surgical Research

Lines of research supported by grants

• Septic shock: biochemical mechanisms
• Oncogenes: Lung, colorectal cancer
• Pancreatic islets: Transplantation

Beatriz Domínguez-Gil, MD, PhD

(Keynote Lecture 1, Thursday, May 31, 11:45-12:30)
Keynote Lecture Title: Deceased donation and the Spanish miracle

Beatriz Domínguez-Gil is medical doctor, PhD in internal medicine, and specialised in Nephrology. Since May 2017 she is Director General of the Spanish National Transplant Organization (Organización Nacional de Trasplantes- ONT), organization that she first joined in November 2006. ONT is acknowledged worldwide for the development of the so-called Spanish Model on Organ Donation and Transplantation, leading Spain to extraordinary levels of deceased donation. At the ONT, she has been mainly involved in international cooperation through different organisations, promoting and participating in a range of initiatives targeted to enhance organisational models, and quality and safety of organ donation, procurement and allocation, and to the fight against organ trafficking.

On behalf of the European Committee on Organ Transplantation at the Council of Europe, Beatriz Domínguez-Gil co-authored the Joint Study of the Council of Europe and the United Nations on Trafficking in organs, tissues and cells and trafficking in human beings with the purpose of the removal of organs. This study called for the development of an international treaty defining the trafficking in human organs, and including provisions for its prosecution and prevention, as well as for the protection of its victims. The Study would later derive on the recently adopted Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs, a Convention open for signature in Santiago de Compostela (Spain) last March 25, 2015.

Beatriz Domínguez-Gil was part of a dedicated team set down by the Spanish government to lead the adoption of Directive 2010/53/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 July 2010 on standards of quality and safety of human organs intended for transplantation during the last Spanish presidency of the European Union.

At the level of the WHO, Beatriz Domínguez-Gil has lead the development of landmark recommendations, as those reflected at the Madrid Resolution on Organ Donation and Transplantation, published in 2011.

Beatriz Domínguez-Gil is past chair of the European Donation and Transplant Coordination Organization (EDTCO), a section of the European Society for Organ Transplantation (ESOT). She is councillor for Europe at The Transplantation Society (TTS), and member of its Ethics Committee. She is immediate past co-chair of the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism, a professional platform that promotes the implementation of the principles of this Declaration. She has more than 100 publications in scientific journals and book chapters.

Steve White, MD, Ph.D

(Keynote Lecture 2, Thursday, May 31, 15:15-15:45)
Keynote Lecture Title: Pancreas Resection and Islet Autotransplantation

Allan Tsung, MD

(Keynote Lecture 3, Friday, June 1, 12:00-12:30)
Keynote Lecture Title: Academic Surgery: is this the right path for me?

Mark A. Hardy, MD

(Lifetime Achievement Speech, Friday, June 1, 15:15-16:00)
Lifetime Achievement Speech Title: The future of organ replacement and/or organ repair

Doctor Mark A. Hardy is Auchincloss Professor of Surgery, former Vice Chairman and Residency Program Director of the Department of Surgery, and is Director Emeritus and Founder of the Transplantation Centre, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and NY Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. His professional scientific career has revolved around transplantation and transplantation biology, with a major interest in alteration of donor immunogenicity, of antigen presentation, and in islet transplantation. He is a former Director of Vascular Surgery and Founder of Transplantation Program at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York In addition to his work in transplantation, in the earlier part of his career he made several contributions to the development of prosthetic vascular grafts and the development and studies of biologic function of thymic hormones, both experimentally and clinically. He is on the Scientific Advisory Board of Hallym-Columbia International Surgical Education Fund which he helped to create to support international exchanges of faculty between underdeveloped and developed countries.

Beside being a very busy general, vascular, and most recently primarily a transplant surgeon, he continues basic research in immunology trying to achieve tolerance to organ allografts in miniature swine. among his many honors and almost constant support by NIH funding for his studies, Dr. Hardy was President of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) in 1994, served 3 terms as Councillor of the Transplantation Society (TTS), and was an Editor of Transplantation for 15 years until 2015. He has published more than 350 articles and edited Xenotransplantation 25. (First International Xenotransplantation Symposium) and another book on Organ Replacement in Diabetes Mellitus. He is a member of numerous surgical and scientific societies including American Surgical Association, Society of Clinical Surgery and American Association of Immunology. He has received a number of prizes for his work, including the NIH Scholar Award early in his career.

He has been awarded Honorary Doctorates at Hallym University in Korea and at Warsaw University in Poland and was named Distinguished Alumnus of Albert Einstein School of Medicine and of Columbia University New York Presbyterian Hospital. He has received numerous awards including the ASTS Pioneer Award and the Francis Moore Mentorship Award, and The Shustra Prize in Immunobiology from India. He continues to focus on issues in surgical education, international health care, in addition to his research in tolerance induction.

Doctor Sooraj Motilall MBChB, MMED (Surg), Cert Trauma Surgery (SA), Cert Critical Care (SA), F.MAS (WALS)

(Keynote Lecture 4, Saturday, June 2, 11:00-11:30)
Keynote Lecture Title: Research in a developing country - Challenges and successes

Doctor Sooraj Motilall is currently Academic and Clinical Head of Trauma Surgery at Steve Biko Academic Hospital, University of Pretoria, South Africa. In addition he is the deputy director of Critical Care at Steve Biko Academic Hospital. He previously held the position of Head of Trauma Surgery at Dr George Mukhari Academic Hospital, Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University, Pretoria, South Africa. His research interests includes laparoscopy in trauma, rhabdomyolysis, blunt aortic injuries and surgical critical care.  He has been an investigator in international studies including the Crash 2 study. At present he is a member of the scientific committee of the Surgical Research Society of South Africa as well as the treasurer of the society.  In 2013 he was part of International Scientific Program Committee for the 11^th World Federation Society of Critical Care Medicine Congress. In 2017 he was the scientific chair for the Critical Care Society of South Africa Annual Congress. Dr Motilall has authored and coauthored several research publications and has been an invited speaker at many national and international congresses.