Guest Editorial

Artificial Organs in Developing Countries

In 1994, Pierre Galletti and I met in Providence,and the main issue of our discussion was the ISAO1997 Congress. Following the established tradition,the congress should take place on the American con-tinent. Sao Paulo, Brazil, Providence, RI, and Wash-ington, D.C. were being considered as possible ven-ues, and our dialogue examined the multiple trendsthe congress could follow.

I admired Prof. Galletti for many of his qualities.One of them was his authentic man of the worldstance. He was well informed and genuinely inter-ested in the different perspectives of all countries,independent of their wealth and culture. As for me,a citizen and resident of Brazil, I tended to pay at-tention to countries with less favored economies andto search suitable courses for their science and tech-nology. This association of interests led us to dreamup an ISAO 1997 Congress with a truly internationalemphasis around scientific, economic, and ethical is-sues. We exposed these views to John Watson, rep-resentative of the Washington, D.C. prospect, andhad a very warm and positive response. After Provi-dence was chosen as the location for the congress,Mike Lysaght was included in our still unofficialsteering committee and unhesitatingly agreed withour plans.

With that determination in mind, we decided toseek papers from regions of the world whose contri-butions are often under represented at internationalmeetings. It was agreed to favor innovative projectsthat demonstrated a serious interest in artificial or-gan science and technology, preferably having beencarried out in the corresponding area. We decided todivide the participant countries as follows: LatinAmerica; Central and Eastern Europe; China andSoutheast Asia; and the Middle East, India, and Af-rica. In the program of the ISAO 1997 Congress, we

included 4 sessions entirely dedicated to oral presen-tations of the best in organ replacement science fromeach of these regions.

To put the idea into practice, one central and 3satellite offices were appointed in each of the 4 re-gions to receive and process the papers. Four awardswere targeted for each region. The 16 awardees re-ceived U.S. $1,500 each to help defray costs. Thiseffort to promote equitable access to all countriesallowed their scientists to receive considerable inter-national attention at the Congress. Once again, withthe same intent, this issue of Artificial Organs con-veys these papers for the observation of the interna-tional organ replacement community.

Pierre Galletti’s broad-minded personality waspresent in Providence thanks to the endeavors of allthe ISAO 1997 Congress organizers. They persist inthis issue of Artificial Organs.

I sincerely thank all the officers of the regionalcenters for their invaluable help. They include thefollowing: Alejandro Trevino-Becerra, Mexico; An-drzej Werynski, Poland; Anthony M. Meyers, SouthAfrica; Byong Goo Min, Korea; Chun-Jean Lee, Tai-wan; Domingo Liotta, Argentina; Georg P. Itkin,Russia; Jaromir Vasku, Czech Republic; Jorge Ur-zua, Chile; Klaus Schindhelm, Australia; Momir H.Polenakovic, Macedonia; Rakesh Srivastava, India;Rashad S. Barsoum, Egypt; Samuel Sideman, Israel;and Yao-Ting Yu, People’s Republic of China.

Adolfo A. Leirner, M.D., Ph.D.Instituto do Coracao

Hospital Das ClinicasFaculdade de Medicine

Universidade de Sao PauloSao Paulo, Brazil

Artificial Organs22(3):173, Blackwell Science, Inc.© 1998 International Society for Artificial Organs

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