2021 Webinar: Simultaneous Liver Kidney Transplant: How Did We Do With the New Criteria?

Ryutaro Hirose, MD is professor and vice chair of clinical operations and value for the Department of Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco. He is an active liver, kidney and pancreas transplant surgeon. He currently serves as the Surgical Director of the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR). He is a Councilor-at-large for the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS).

Dr. Hirose has served as the chair of the ASTS Fellowship Training Committee and the ASTS Standards and Quality Committee. He spearheaded the creation and development of a National Transplant Quality Program with the ASTS and the American College of Surgeons. He has served as vice chair and chair of the UNOS Liver and Intestinal Organ Transplantation committee and led the development and implementation of the new liver distribution system, the national liver review board, HCC and MELD exception policy and the Simultaneous Liver Kidney Transplant (SLK). He has served on the board of directors and chair of the medical advisory board of donor network west, the local organ procurement agency for Northern California. Dr. Hirose has served as an associate editor for Clinical Transplantation. He has also served as the associate program director of the UCSF Surgical Residency program for over 15 years. His academic and scholarly interests include ischemia-reperfusion injury, hepatocellular carcinoma, transplant outcomes and organ allocation and distribution policy, with over 120 peer-reviewed articles in these specific areas. As an active educator and advisor, he has mentored over 100 surgical residents, medical students, fellows and junior faculty, both at UCSF and other institutions.

Richard N. Formica Jr., MD is a professor of medicine and surgery, director of transplant medicine and the medical director of the Kidney Transplant Program at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Formica is a practicing transplant nephrologist. He is currently the President of the American Society of Transplantation and the OPTN/UNOS Regional 1 Associate Counselor and the Region 1 Representative to the OPTN/UNOS Membership and Professional Standards Committee.

Dr. Formica has extensive expertise in public policy as it pertains to the solid organ transplantation. He been an active participant in the United Network of Organ Sharing since 2009. During this involvement he held leadership positions as the Chairman of the Kidney Paired Donation Work Group, the Kidney Transplantation Committee and the Simultaneous Liver-Kidney Transplantation Working Group. In these roles, he participated in the design, public vetting and implementation of public policy regarding, living kidney donation, deceased donor kidney allocation and the medically appropriated and fair allocation of deceased donor kidneys with deceased donor livers. Dr. Formica has been involved with the Clinical Trials in Organ Transplantation since inception, having been a site PI on CTOT-1, CTOT-9, CTOT -17 and currently is the site PI for CTOT -19. Dr. Formica has authored or co-authored 79 peer reviewed manuscripts and numerous book chapters. He is currently the Associate Editor for the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology responsible for the transplant portfolio.

David C. Mulligan, MD, FACS, FAST, FAASLD is an abdominal organ transplant surgeon performing both living and deceased donor liver, kidney and pancreas transplants. He currently serves as Professor and Chair of Transplantation and Immunology in the Department of Surgery at Yale University School of Medicine/Yale New Haven Health System. His clinical and academic focus surrounds living donor liver transplantation, expanding donation, and working on ways to utilize ex-vivo organ perfusion systems to increase transplantation in the U.S.

Dr. Mulligan’s leadership in solid organ transplantation across national and international platforms has grown considerably and he now serves as the President of the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS)/Organ Procurement Transplant Network (OPTN), Member At-Large on the Governing Board of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, Chair of the Advisory Council on Transplantation (ACOT) to the Secretary of HHS, Special Government Employee for FDA Medical Device Advisory Committee and Chair of the Business Practice Committee of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons. In these visionary roles, he has led major changes in organ allocation and distribution and will hopefully culminate in substantial increases in organ transplants. Passionate about patient-centered care and building more resilient teams, he makes time to share his enjoyment of spending time in nature, especially near the ocean, with his wife and three children.

Michael L. Schilsky, MD, FAASLD completed his medical education at the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine and then trained in internal medicine and gastroenterology at The Albert Einstein College of Medicine. After a post-doctoral training fellowship at the Liver Research Center of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine he joined the faculty there and rose to the rank of Associate Professor.

Dr. Schilsky moved to The Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 1989 to begin his work in the field of liver transplantation and was recruited in 2003 to the Weill Cornell Medical Center where he partnered with the transplant program at Columbia Presbyterian. Dr. Schilsky was again recruited in 2007 to Yale as Medical Director for the Liver Transplant program and rose to the rank of Professor of Medicine and Surgery. He also is a member of the NIH sponsored Acute Liver Failure Study Group and chairs their publications committee. He is a former UNOS Region 1 representative for the Liver and Intestine Committee and is the current Chair of the Special Interest Group for Liver Transplantation and Surgery sponsored by the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD).