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Speakers

 

Andrew Adams MD/PhD is Professor of Surgery and Chief of the Division of Transplantation at the University of Minnesota where he holds the John S Najarian Chair in Clinical Transplantation. He is also the Executive Medical Director of the Solid Organ Transplant Service Line at M Health Fairview. He received a combined MD/PhD with an emphasis in Transplantation Immunology from Emory and subsequently completed his General Surgery Residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He returned to Emory and completed a fellowship in Transplant Surgery where he remained as a faculty member until joining the University of Minnesota in September of 2020. His research efforts are concentrated on the development of novel strategies and therapeutics to promote transplantation tolerance. He has made important contributions to our understanding concerning the interplay between viral infection, immune memory and the allo-immune response. He is also an internationally recognized expert in large animal models of xenotransplantation (pig-to-non-human primate organ transplant). His clinical practice is focused on abdominal organ transplantation with a focus on liver & kidney transplantation in both adult and pediatric patients. One of his primary clinical research interests is resource utilization following kidney transplantation including defining the factors that drive increased burden of hospitalization and inferior outcomes. He has mentored numerous pre-doctoral students, post-doctoral fellows and PhD and MD-PhD candidates. He and his trainees have received numerous awards from professional societies.

Jamil Azzi is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is the medical director of the vascularized composite allo-transplantation (VCA) and the associate director of the kidney and pancreas transplant at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Azzi is a physician scientist who is leading a NIH funded laboratory that focuses on understanding the immune-regulatory arm of the immune system in transplantation, autoimmunity and cancer with the goal of developing more targeted and safer therapeutic strategies. Currently, a major focus of his research is CD4 and CD8 regulatory T cells in addition to genetic and non-genetic engineering of cell therapies. Dr. Azzi’s laboratory is also exploring multiple genomics and proteomics approaches to develop biomarkers that noninvasively detect rejection in kidney transplant recipients and measure the immune function of immunosuppressed patients. Works from his laboratory resulted in a new urine test to detect rejection that will be offered to patients this year.

 

Lyndsey Bowman, PharmD, BCPS, FCCP, FAST Pharmacotherapy Specialist, Kidney and Liver Transplant Coordinator, Solid Organ Transplant Pharmacists Tampa General Hospital

Dr. Lyndsey Bowman is an abdominal organ transplant pharmacotherapy specialist, Co-Residency Program Director of the PGY2 Solid Organ Transplant (SOT) Residency Program, and clinical coordinator for the transplant pharmacists at Tampa General Hospital (TGH). Dr. Bowman has been practicing in the field of SOT since 2007 following pharmacy school at St. Louis College of Pharmacy and two years of residency training at the Medical University of South Carolina. She is a board-certified pharmacotherapy specialist and a fellow of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) and the American Society of Transplantation (AST). Lyndsey is an active member of AST and currently serves as immediate past chair of AST’s Community Education Committee. She is a former Member-at-Large of the AST Transplant Pharmacy Community of Practice, and most recently served as chair for ACCP’s Immunology/Transplant Practice & Research Network. Lyndsey has presented nationally and published many articles in the area of transplantation.

Anita Chong received her PhD in cell biology from the Australian National University and is currently a Professor at The University of Chicago, USA. She current research interest is in B cells in transplantation rejection, mechanisms of immunological tolerance and the impact of pregnancy and transplantation tolerance and rejection. She has published 200 research articles, book chapters and reviews, and her work has led to pilot clinical trials for the treatment of antibody-mediated rejection and desensitization. Anita has served on multiple grant review boards and was a member of the NIH/NIAID advisory council. She has won numerous awards including the 2015 Basic Science Established Investigator Award from The American Society of Transplantation, 2020 Women Leader in Transplantation Award and 2020 Distinguished Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She was the Chair of the Basic Science Committee of the Transplantation Society, Co-chair and Chair of the Community of Transplantation Scientists, American Society of Transplantation, and is currently the Pillar 1 Chair of the Women in Transplantation (WIT) Initiative.

 

Matthew Cooper is a Professor of Surgery at Georgetown School of Medicine, and Director of Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation and Director for Quality at the Medstar Georgetown Transplant Institute (MGTI). After receiving his medical degree from the Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1994, Dr Cooper completed his general surgery training at the Medical College of Wisconsin followed by a fellowship in multi-organ abdominal transplantation in 2002 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD. He joined the transplant faculty at the Johns Hopkins Hospital upon completion of his training and was appointed Surgical Director of Kidney Transplantation and Clinical Research in 2003. Dr. Cooper joined the University of Maryland in 2005 directing the kidney transplant and clinical research program until 2012 following which he assumed his current role in Washington, DC. Dr. Cooper seeks new opportunities for living donation through innovation and by removing the disincentives for those considering donation while promoting the safety and long-term care of live organ donors. His clinical interests included kidney and pancreas transplantation; particularly the use of marginal organs. Dr. Cooper is involved in several ongoing clinical research projects primarily with an interest in immunosuppression minimization and amelioration of delayed graft function in kidney allografts following ischemic reperfusion injury. He has authored over 250 peer-reviewed manuscripts, 320 abstracts and 12 book chapters. He is regularly invited to speak on a variety of transplant-related topics both nationally and internationally. Dr. Cooper is involved in transplantation activities both in the US and on an international basis. He is the current UNOS/OPTN Past President. He is a member of the Board of Directors for the NKF and a member of the NKF’s National Transplant Task Force. He has served as the chairman of the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS) Living Donor Committee and was a councillor for the American Society of Transplant Surgeons. He is a current board member for the National Kidney Registry, the American Foundation for Donation and Transplantation, the International Pancreas and Islet Cell Transplant Association, and Donate Life America. Dr. Cooper has served as Chair of the American Transplant Congress.

 

 

Paolo Cravedi, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Division of Nephrology in the Department of Medicine. Dr. Paolo Cravedi is a scientist physician with a strong interest in kidney transplantation and autoimmune glomerular diseases. His studies have contributed to defining the organ allocation system currently used in many countries around the world. He is currently the Director of the Translational Transplant Research Center (TTRC) at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York.

           

Juliet Emamaullee is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Surgery at the USC Keck School of Medicine and an attending transplant surgeon at Keck Hospital of USC and Children's Hospital-Los Angeles. She is also the Associate Chief, Division of Clinical Research, USC Department of Surgery, where she helps oversee >70 clinical trials. She is a surgeon-scientist with an NIH-funded translational immunology lab, exploring immunological phenotypes associated with liver transplant recipients. Dr. Emamaullee’s other research interests include Fontan-associated liver disease, living donor liver transplantation, disparities in access to liver transplant, and tolerance strategies to improve allograft survival. Dr. Emamaullee holds leadership roles in several surgical societies including the American College of Surgeons, American Society of Transplant Surgeons, American Society of Transplantation, and Association for Academic Surgery. She serves as Chair of the North American Living Liver Donation Innovation Group and is on the Steering Committee for the UNOS Liver Paired Exchange Pilot Program. She has >100 peer-reviewed publications, has received more than 50 awards, and has over $2 million in extramural funding including a National Cancer Institute K08 Award.

Maryjane Farr joined UT Southwestern Medical Center in September 2021 as Professor of Medicine and Section Chief of Heart Failure, VAD and Transplant.  Previously she was the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Associate Professor of Medicine and Medical Director of the Adult Heart Transplant Program at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.  Dr. Farr is a graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University (BA’89), Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons, AOA (’98) and the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health (MSc’12).  Dr. Farr was the Director of Clinical Trials in Heart Failure and Transplant at Columbia from 2007-12, received an NIH training grant for her master’s degree (2010-12), and was awarded the Shorin Silverstein Research in Transplantation Award (at Columbia) for 2012-14.  Dr. Farr directed the Adult Heart Transplant Program at Columbia for 6 years, and she has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts in the field of heart failure, VAD or transplant.  She has participated in scholarly work and education with the ACC, AHA, HFSA, ISHLT and AST.  She has been an active member and leader in UNOS/OPTN serving three years on the Thoracic Committee including Heart Subcommittee Chair, two years on the Membership and Professional Standards Committee, two years as region 9 Associate Councilor and was recently appointed to the UNOS/OPTN Board of Directors.  She is an Associate Editor of Transplantation and Content Editor for Circulation. Her key areas of interest are in primary graft failure after heart transplant, immunosuppression, and long-term survival of heart transplant recipients.

 

Dr. Sandy Feng is Professor of Surgery in Residence at the University of California San Francisco and the Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Surgery. She is an abdominal transplant surgeon who performs liver, kidney and pancreas transplants. Dr. Feng graduated from Harvard College, where she received the prestigious Marshall Scholarship. She completed a doctorate in molecular biology at the University of Cambridge under Sir Aaron Klug, Nobel Laureate and previous President of the Royal Society. She then earned her medical degree at Stanford University School of Medicine, subsequently completing two post-doctoral fellowships, one at Stanford with Professors Ronald Davis and Paul Berg, Nobel Laureate and a second at the Whitehead Institute, MIT with Professor Richard Mulligan. Her General Surgery training was at Brigham and Women's Hospital followed by transplant fellowship at UCSF. In her research, Dr. Feng studies tolerance, the ability for a transplant recipient to maintain normal organ function with minimal or even no immunosuppression. With generous and long-standing funding from the National Institutes of Health, she has led several multi-center clinical trials to study spontaneous operational tolerance and tolerance induction in both adult and pediatric liver transplant recipients. Dr. Feng has held multiple leadership positions in key professional societies and also with the United Network for Organ Sharing. She has organized multiple national conferences addressing issues critical to the transplantation community. She has authored more than 160 papers, currently serves on the editorial board of the New England Journal of Medicine and is the Editor-in-Chief for the American Journal of Transplantation.

Dr. John Gill completed his clinical training in Canada and research training at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston before joining the Division of Nephrology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada as a clinician scientist in 2002 where he is currently Professor of Medicine with tenure.

Dr. Gill has been a member of the AST since 2002 and is currently the Society's President. He is Deputy Editor of the American Journal of Transplantation and Chair of the Annual AST Fellows Meeting.  He has served as Chair of the Education Committee, Kidney-Pancreas Committee, and Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee, and has led the organization of joint winter meetings with the Canadian Society of Transplantation as well as the AST Clinical Trials Symposium. He serves as Chair of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients.

Dr. Gill is a clinical and health policy researcher who has continuously maintained peer-reviewed funding throughout his academic career, he has led the development of a Canadian clinical transplant research network, authored over 120 peer-reviewed publications, and trained 20 post-doctoral research fellows.    

Dr. Gill has had a lead role in advancing national initiatives for transplant patients in Canada including development of Canada’s kidney paired donation program. He has served as President of the Canadian Society of Nephrology, and the Canadian Organ Replacement Register.

 

Jasleen Kukreja, M.D., M.P.H. is Professor of Surgery in Cardiothoracic Surgery division at University of California, San Francisco. She is the Director of Lung Transplantation as well as Adult Respiratory ECMO and ex-vivo lung perfusion programs at UCSF. Dr. Kukreja earned her medical degree from UCLA, completed general surgery residency and Thoracic Surgery fellowship at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and then completed a Cardiothoracic Surgery training at UCSF where she has remained as faculty. Under her leadership, the UCSF Lung Transplantation Program has become one of the premiere programs in the country with better than expected outcomes 10 years straight. The program has performed over 1000 transplants and is top 10 in volume. Dr. Kukreja has received numerous professional honors including the Teaching Award at Harvard, Outstanding Pulmonary Physician, American Board of Cardiology award, Top Doctors 2016-2022, Exceptional Women in Medicine 2017, 2019, and Trailblazing Women in Surgery Muriel Steele Society Award. Her research focuses on outcomes in Lung Transplantation. She has published extensively and has been invited nationally and internationally to share her expertise.

 

Dr. Deepali Kumar is a Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto, and Director of Transplant Infectious Diseases at the University Health Network. She is the President of the American Society of Transplantation. She is also Chair of the Canadian Standards Association Committee on Cells, Tissues, Organ Transplants. Her clinical and research interests focus on infections in transplant recipients including the impact of viruses and vaccines in this population. Dr. Kumar has published over 200 scientific papers and mentored many trainees. Dr. Kumar has been very involved in COVID research since the start of the pandemic.

 

Deborah Jo Levine is a Professor of Medicine, Medical Director of Lung Transplantation, Director of Pulmonary Hypertension, and the Forrest C. Roan-Nelson Puett Distinguished Professor in Pulmonary Medicine at University of Texas San Antonio.

She has dedicated her career to the field of lung transplantation. Her focus in the field includes daily clinical endeavors, conducting research in many facets of lung transplantation, holding leadership positions, as well as advancing the field through many educational platforms.

Clinically, she has tirelessly been involved with every aspect of the management of lung transplant recipients- from donor management to the management of her recipients in the ICU, hospital and clinic.

Early in her career, she co-authored the manuscript describing the SALT-protocol for lung donor management which is still in many OPO’s throughout the country. She has subsequently been involved in teaching several OPOs the details of lung donor management, including hands on bronchoscopy techniques.

Her main research interest, however, is in antibody mediated rejection in lung transplantation. In 2016, she created and led a consensus conference regarding antibody mediated rejection in lung transplantation.  This led to an important paper in the field of lung transplant.

From an education standpoint, Deborah has been involved in mentoring young faculty and fellows in the field. She has led and been involved in several transplant educational symposiums, courses and lectures.  She has been involved with the AST fellows Course for two years, educating graduating fellows interested in this field. She has been involved in the education committee for both CHEST and the ISHLT.

She has been active in several committees and work groups in the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplant Society, CHEST, AST and ATS, regarding important concepts in lung transplant. She has held a leadership position as the Lung Transplant Chair in the American College of Chest Physicians. 
Over the last five years, she has become very active and involved in the AST. She is now the Vice Chair of the Thoracic and Critical Care (TCC) COP.  She is also involved in the Public Policy committee and the STAR AMR committee.  

Her key aim in working with AST is to grow the presence of lung transplant and critical care medicine in the AST. She is interested in continuing to mentor younger faculty and in creating a more robust lung transplant education and research effort for our society.

 

Dr. Marian Michaels is a Professor of Pediatrics and Surgery in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Pittsburgh, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh (CHP). She has worked in pediatric infectious diseases for over 30 years with her research and clinical work largely revolving around immunocompromised hosts with an emphasis on those undergoing transplantation. Dr Michaels has been active in the American Society of Transplantation (AST) all her professional career starting in Fellowship. Teaching and mentoring have long been a passion for Dr Michaels and this will be her fifth year as faculty for the AST Fellows Symposium.

 

Dr. Kenneth Newell completed a residency in general surgery at Loyola University followed by graduate studies in immunology in the laboratory of Jeffrey Bluestone and a fellowship in abdominal transplantation at the University of Chicago. He remained at the University of Chicago as a faculty member until relocating to Emory University in 2001 where he is currently Professor of Surgery with Tenure and Vice Chair for Academic Affairs. He is an active transplant surgeon whose clinical practice focuses on kidney transplantation in adults and children, pancreas transplantation, and living kidney donation. His research interests have spanned the spectrum from basic laboratory investigation to translational studies and clinical trials. He has served national societies and organizations including the AST, ASTS, UNOS, SRTR and Donate Life America. He is an associate editor for the American Journal of Transplantation and previously served as a member of the Transplantation, Tolerance, and Tumor Immunology study section.

Sean Pinney is a native of St. Louis, Missouri. He attended Georgetown University where he received both his undergraduate and medical degrees. He completed residency training at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and fellowships in cardiology, heart failure & transplantation at Columbia University. In 2004, he joined the faculty of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai where he directed the Advanced Heart Failure & Cardiac Transplant Program. In 2015, he was appointed Director of Heart Failure and Transplantation for the Mount Sinai Health System. In 2020, he moved to the University of Chicago where he was appointed Co-Director of the Heart & Vascular Center, Director of Heart Failure & Transplantation and Director of Clinical & Translational Research. Dr. Pinney is an active clinical researcher who has led both NIH and industry-sponsored trials in the areas of heart failure, cardiac transplantation and mechanical circulatory support. He serves on the editorial boards of JACC, JACC Heart Failure, the Journal of Heart & Lung Transplantation and the Journal of Cardiac Failure. He serves on the AST Board of Directors, is a member of the Georgetown Medical Alumni Board and is past President of the New York Cardiothoracic Transplant Consortium.

 

Lisa Potter is a transplant pharmacist, and the coordinator of transplant pharmacy services at the University of Chicago Medicine. UChicago Medicine’s Transplant Institute offers kidney, liver, heart, lung, pancreas, and islet cell transplantation. The transplant pharmacy model aligns staff by organ group, and offers patients and providers alike transplant pharmacist expertise across all care settings. Driven by the importance of medications to a transplant recipient, and a desire for patients to feel it is a shared burden, she and her transplant pharmacist colleagues assume responsibility for all medications in each transplant patient’s regimen. For each patient, the task is to ensure each medication is well selected and properly dosed, ensure the overall regimen is practical and understood, and ensure that each component in the regimen is attainable and affordable. Helping patients navigate these needs has informed Dr. Potter’s research and advocacy priorities. She loves coffee, and chats about Medicare drug policy.

 

Dr. Deirdre Sawinski is a transplant nephrologist and epidemiologist at Weill Cornell Medical College, where she also serves as the Associate Director for the Kidney Transplant Program at NY Presbyterian Hospital. Her research interests include kidney transplant outcomes, transplantation in patients with chronic viral infections, pregnancy and living donation. She was elected to the AST Board of Directors as a Councilor at Large in 2022.

 

 

Miroslav Sekulic completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Connecticut with a BS in Physiology and Neurobiology, graduate studies at the Boston University School of Medicine with research performed in the Renal Section, and medical school training at the University of Belgrade School of Medicine. After which he held dual appointments as a Research Fellow in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital, Division of Nephrology and Program in Glomerular Disease. This was followed by clinical residency training in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology at the University of Minnesota, during which time he spent a number of months at the University of Bergen as a Fulbright Scholar studying differential gene expression in Fabry disease and membranous glomerulonephritis. After residency, Dr. Sekulic completed a clinical fellowship in Renal Pathology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Currently, Dr. Sekulic is an assistant professor in the Department of Pathology and Cell Biology at Columbia University.

 

Heth Turnquist  is an Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Surgery and the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute (STI) at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. At the STI, he is the Director of Academics and Training. He is also a cross-appointed faculty member in the Department of Immunology and McGowan Regenerative Medicine Institute. Dr. Turnquist obtained Bachelor’s degrees in Biology and Psychology from South Dakota State University. In 2005, after receiving a Ph.D. in Pathology and Microbiology from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, he subsequently completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh with Dr. Angus Thomson. The Turnquist lab works to decipher how immune cells interact with damaged tissue after injuries caused by trauma and organ transplantation. They are particularly focused on gaining a better understanding of how "alarmins", or typically sequestered self-derived immunomodulatory molecules regulate the immune system to orchestrate specific outcomes. The majority of our efforts use transgenic and knockout mice in pre-clinical models of solid organ and bone marrow transplantation, as well as tissue injury and systemic trauma. In collaborative efforts, we are working to translate our basic discoveries into novel biologics and cell therapies designed to resolve immune-mediated pathology, as well as identify effective biomarkers of disease states in transplantation. 

 

Nicole Valenzuela has had an ongoing basic science research program since 2018 investigating the mechanisms of alloimmune injury after solid organ transplantation, particularly the role of the vascular endothelial cell in the regulation of inflammation and rejection. Her pre- and post-doctoral research sought to define the characteristics of HLA antibodies which increase the risk of antibody-mediated rejection, such as vascular endothelial cell signaling, FcγR recognition and complement activation. Subsequently, she completed a fellowship and became board certified in clinical Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics, currently serving part time as an Assistant Director at the UCLA Immunogenetics Center to support diagnostic testing for transplant patients. A particular focus of her clinical research interests has been improving access to transplant and post-transplant management of highly sensitized patients, and advancing HLA antibody detection and monitoring in routine and clinical trial settings. Current basic research interests of the research lab are defining the intrinsic mechanisms underlying endothelial cell heterogeneity in regulating leukocyte trafficking and activation. A major focus of this work evaluates how endothelial cells regulate site-specific leukocyte trafficking, selective recruitment of leukocyte subsets, and the capacity to modulate the adaptive immune response; and how their site of origin leads to specialization of these functions.

 

Dr. Elizabeth Verna is the Frank Cardile Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, where she practices as transplant hepatologist. Dr. Verna has an active clinical research program in end-stage liver disease and liver transplantation and is the Director of Clinical Research for the Columbia University Transplant Clinical Research Center as well as the Director of Hepatology Research for the Division of Digestive and Liver Diseases. She is dedicated to the work of AST and recently completed a term on the AST Board of Directors.

Dr. Alexander Wiseman is the Executive Director of Kidney Transplantation at the Centura Transplant Institute in Denver Colorado. He completed both his undergraduate and medical school training at Washington University in St. Louis, followed by residency training in Internal Medicine at University of California, San Francisco and completed his nephrology and transplant nephrology fellowships at University of Colorado. His was previously a Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado where he was a faculty member for 19 years, and was the Medical Director for Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation Programs from 2008-2019.
Dr. Wiseman’s interests include access to transplantation, organ allocation and utilization, novel immunosuppressive strategies, and transplant therapies for diabetes. He has served as Chair for a number of ASN and AST supported meetings, has given over 200 invited lectures nationally and internationally, and is an Associate Editor for the American Journal of Transplantation.