Dr. Testa was recruited by Baylor University Medical Center in July 2011 to lead the Living Donor Liver Program. In August of 2015, he became the Surgical Chief of Abdominal Transplant for the Simmons Transplant Institute and in December 2017 was promoted to Chief. He is actively involved in the American Society of Transplant Surgeons where he currently is a member of the Living Donation Committee. He is also a recognized authority in the field of Living Donor Liver Transplantation and Living Donor Intestinal Transplantation with a new interest in Uterus Transplantation, graduated with a medical degree Cum Laude and also completed general surgery residency at the University of Padova Medical School in Italy. After arriving in the States, he completed residency in general surgery at the University of Chicago and then a fellowship in Abdominal Organ Transplantation at Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas. He then moved to the University of Essen in Germany where he was instrumental in starting the first Adult-to-Adult Living Donor Liver Transplant Program in Europe.

Giuliano Testa

Dr. Ascher was ASTS President in 2000-2001, councilor of ILTS 2005-2009, and she served as TTS president from2016-2018 and is now immediate past president. She has recently been selected as a member of the World Health Organization Task Force on transplantation. She completed her undergraduate and medical education at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She completed a general surgery residency and clinical transplantation fellowship at the University of Minnesota after which she joined the faculty. She was recruited in 1988 by the UCSF Department of Surgery to build a liver transplantation program. In 1991, she was appointed Chief of Transplantation, an expanded role that included liver, kidney and pancreas transplants. In 1993, she was appointed Vice-Chair of the UCSF Department of Surgery, and in 1999 was appointed Department Chair. Under her leadership, NIH funding has flourished the department is made up of 40% women and one half the residents are women. She served as a Departmental chair for 17 years and stepped down as she assumed the positioned of President of The Transplant Society. Honors Dr. Ascher received are 2006- Thomas E. Starzl Prize in Surgery and Immunology, 2007-Association of Women Surgeon Nina Star Braunwald Award, 2013-American Medical Women’s Association Mentor Award, 2015-ASTS Pioneer Award, 2015-ILTS Distinguished Service Award and 2015 Chancellor’s Award in Diversity.

Nancy Ascher

Dr. Kim Olthoff is the Donald Guthrie Professor of Surgery in the Division of Transplantation at Penn, Vice Chair for Faculty Development of the Department of Surgery, and the Chief of the Division of Transplant Surgery. Dr. Olthoff obtained her MD from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, and trained in general surgery and transplant at UCLA. She joined the University of Pennsylvania in 1995, and leads the liver transplant and living donor programs at Penn and at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She has a busy clinical practice in adult and pediatric liver transplantation, living donor surgery, and hepatobiliary malignancies. On a national and international level, Dr. Olthoff is a Past-President for the American Society of Transplant Surgeons. She has served on the UNOS/OPTN Board of Directors, and chaired numerous other committees for national and international surgical and transplant societies. Dr. Olthoff has an active research program in clinical and translational studies that focus on living donation and liver regeneration, early allograft dysfunction, and molecular pathways involved in restoration of liver function in the transplant setting. Dr Olthoff is a recipient of NIH funding, and has published over 200 manuscripts, editorials, and chapters.

Kim Olthoff

Dr. Roberts is a professor of surgery at the University of California, San Francisco. The liver transplant program was established in 1988 and we continue to be a leading center for living donor transplant in the United States, both in terms of outcomes and volume. In collaboration with Dr. Francis Yao, they have explored the use of liver transplantation in the management of hepatocellular carcinoma. This work extends from 2001, when we proposed alternate criteria, “UCSF criteria”, for determining which patients could undergo successful liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma based upon tumor size and number. The UCSF criteria have been accepted internationally. Their hypothesis was that patients, who are outside of the criteria, who had their tumors killed, (ablation or chemoembolization) would then have a similar outcome to patients who initially met the criteria. An important aspect of this was a waiting time to make sure that the tumor did not recur. The strategy of waiting to determine the oncologic/biologic tumor behavior, “ablate and wait”, now requiring a 6 month waiting time prior to transplantation, and the UCSF down-staging criteria has been incorporated into national policy.

John Roberts

Julie K. Heimbach, M.D., is a transplant surgeon and the surgical director of Liver Transplantation at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, with a primary focus in adult and pediatric liver transplantation and living-donor surgery.

In addition to her clinical activities, Dr. Heimbach is active in research including analysis of outcomes for complex patients such as those with hilar cholangiocarcinoma and other malignancies, or obesity. She has been involved in research examining the long-term outcomes of living liver donors and living kidney donors and her work has been published in high-impact scientific journals. She has also been active in education, having previously served as the surgery clerkship director for Mayo Medical School (now Mayo Clinic School of Medicine). In addition to her work with medical students, Dr. Heimbach has mentored many transplant surgery fellows and research fellows.

Dr. Heimbach is also very active in the development of national organ allocation policy. She is currently on the Board of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) and is also serving as the vice-chair of the OPTN Liver-Intestine Committee. She has previously served on the Membership and Professional Standards Committee of the OPTN.

Professor ABHINAV HUMAR currently serves as the Division chief of Transplant surgery at University of Pittsburgh as well as Clinical director of the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute. In addition, he is also a Faculty Member, McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine since May 2009. His clinical interests include adult abdominal transplants (kidney, liver, pancreas, and bowel), pediatric transplants, living-related liver transplants, split liver transplants, complex hepatopancreaticobiliary surgery and total pancreatectomy with autoislet transplant for treatment of chronic pancreatitis.

Julie Heimbach

Abhinav Humar

Dr. Roberto Hernandez-Alejandro is a liver surgeon and has been the Chief of the Division of Transplantation at the University of Rochester and Professor of Surgery since August 2016.He completed a transplant and Hepatobiliary (HPB) surgery fellowship from 2006-2008 at Western University, Canada. Subsequently, he received further training in live donor liver transplantation (LDLT) at the Kyoto University in Japan in 2009.Dr Hernandez was a pioneer in utilizing donation after cardiac death organs to increase the number of livers available for transplantation. Since his arrival in Rochester, he has developed a high performing team and significantly grown the number of liver and kidney transplants without compromising outcomes, which are currently above national averages. Under his leadership, URMC successfully restarted their live donor liver transplant program to further expand the donor options available to patients in the region.

Roberto Hernandez-Alejandro

Educated in Paris France MD, PhD

HPB and LT surgeon

Worked as consultant and then Prof for 21 yrs at the Hepatobiliary center (Villejuif France) under the direction of H Bismuth

Chief department in Henri Mondor Hospital for 7 years

Currently serving 1 sabbatical year at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel

Prof of HPB and LT surgery

Performed personnel > 1500 LT and > 1500 Liver resections

Publications > 400 indexed in PUBMED

Area of interest: complex liver surgery and liver transplantation

Daniel Azoulay

Dr. Cattral is Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto and Senior Scientist at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute. He is the Surgical Director of the Live-donor Liver Transplant Program at the Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network. Dr. Cattral’s laboratory focuses on dendritic cell (DC) ontogeny and how tumor microenvironments influence developmental fate decisions by DCs. The ultimate goal of these studies is to develop DC-restricted therapies for next generation immunotherapy in cancer and transplantation.

Mark Cattral

Dr. Kwon worked as a faculty at Mayo Clinic Rochester’s liver transplant program and is currently Director of Laparoscopic Liver Surgery at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland OH.

Born as a son of diplomat, he spent over 11 years abroad during his youth which exposed him to different cultural and language background and allowed him to be fluent in English, French, Spanish and Korean. He finished his medical education and training, including surgical residency and fellowship in liver transplantation and hepato-pancreato-biliary surgical oncology, in Korea. Having worked in both fields for more than 15 years, he operated on over 1000 liver transplants, including 700 living donor transplants, and over 2000 liver resections.

Having had interest in minimally invasive surgery, he started a laparoscopic liver resection program in 2008 at Samsung Medical Center and since have done more than 800 purely laparoscopic liver resection including more than 400 major liver resections. With the aid of his extensive experience in both surgical arenas, he started purely laparoscopic donor hepatectomy for both the pediatric and adult recipients in May 2013 and established one of the largest laparoscopic liver donor programs in the world. Being passionate in education, he performed the world first live surgery on purely laparoscopic donor hepatectomy in 2014 and have done several more successful cases afterwards. He also helped establish numerous laparoscopic liver resection and living donor liver transplant programs in Korea and around the world.

Choon Hyuck David Kwon

Jan Lerut, MD, PhD; Professor emeritus of Surgery (February 18th, 1951).

He graduated from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL-B) and trained in General Surgery at the KUL under the lead of Prof. Jacques A.GRUWEZ, the H.Heine University of Dusseldorf-G) under the lead of Prof. Karl KREMER and the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL-B) under the lead of Prof. Paul Jacques KESTENS.

From the start of his surgical career he was very involved in the field of organ transplantation. This interest resulted in a hepatobiliary and transplantation fellowship at the University Paris-Sud - Centre Hépatobiliaire under the lead of Prof. BISMUTH and at the University Pittsburgh Medical Centre under the lead of Prof. STARZL. He was director of the abdominal transplant program at the Inselspital University of Bern (CH) from 1987 to 1991. He was ordinary Professor of Surgery and director of the Department of Abdominal and Transplantation Surgery. He was Director of the Starzl Abdominal Transplant Unit of the University Hospitals Saint Luc from 1991 to 2016 and of the UCL Transplant Centre in Brussels from 2006 to 2016.

He has served as president of the Belgian Society of Transplantation, the Royal Belgian Society of Surgery, the European Society for Organ Transplantation (ESOT) and the International Liver Transplantation Society (ILTS) and chairman of the Eurotransplant Liver Allocation Committee (ELIAC).He is vice-chair of the UEMS -European Board of Transplantation Surgery (EBTS) and member of the Belgian Superior Health Council. He is member of 22 learning societies related to surgery and transplantation, several councils, scientific committees (eg Transmet project, European University Diploma Hepatic, pancreatic and biliary cancers: oncosurgical strategies, UEMS-European Board Transplantation Surgery). He serves as reviewer for most major peer-review journals in the field of surgery, transplantation and hepatology and is member of different editorial boards. He leads the Euroliver Foundation and Soroptimist awareness campaigns for adolescents in relation to organ donation and transplantation.

Jan Lerut

Dr. Yaman Tokat currently serves as the Chief and Director of liver transplantation program in Florence Nightingale Hospital, Istanbul/Turkey, and is the Founder and President of Turkish Society of Liver Transplantation. He was born in Izmir, Turkey, in 1959. He received his medical degree(M.D.)and residency in General Surgery from the Ege University School of Medicine in Izmir, Turkey. He has performed the first successful cadaveric liver transplantation at Ege University in1994 and started the first successful living donor liver transplantation program in Turkey in1999.He established a multidisciplinary team and improved every aspect of the program reaching the highest number of the patients with liver transplantation in Turkey (100/ per year).In time, he passed the torch to the surgeons in his team and since 2005,he, as a full time professor, began to work at Florence Nightingale Hospital, Bilim University starting another brand-new liver transplant program at this hospital. He currently serves as the Chief and Director of liver transplantation program in Florence Nightingale Hospital, Istanbul/Turkey, and is the Founder and President of Turkish Society of Liver Transplantation.

Yaman Tokat

Dr. Kamel is the director of the national liver transplant program and Chief liver transplant surgeon in three leading liver transplant programs in Egypt since 2001 with an overall experience of more than 750 Living Donor Liver Transplants. He graduated from Ain Shams University and did his residency in Kings College Hospital- London. He is also the Chairman of Refaat Kamel hospital for hepatobiliary and liver transplantation Surgery. He was awarded as an honorary fellow of the European Board of Transplantation and North African representative of MESOT since 2012. He is also a board member for establishing the organ donation law in 2010 and heads the communication committee in the supreme Egyptian council of organ transplantation. Dr Kamel has published more than 700 papers in local and International Journals.

Refaat Kamel

Dr Subhash Gupta is the Founder Chairman of Max Centre for Liver and Biliary Sciences (CLBS) at Max Super Speciality Hospital, Saket, New Delhi, India. He is one of the pioneers of living donor liver transplantation in India. CLBS is actively engaged in Liver Transplantation and complex HPB surgery and conducts over 300 transplants every year. Since 2006, over 2700 living donor liver transplants have been carried out under his supervision. In 2009, his team introduced the posterior sector graft for increased donor safety in India, and was instrumental in pioneering hepatic transplantation in babies under 6 months of age in India.

In 2012, he was honoured by the Rotary Association of India for excellence in clinical medicine, and in the same year, he was the recipient of the Vishist Chikitshak Rattan (distinguished clinician) awarded by Delhi Medical Association. In 2016, He was awarded the prestigious “YASH BHARTI” by the Uttar Pradesh government. In the same year, he was awarded the highest civilian award for doctors in India, the Dr. B. C. Roy National Award for encouraging the development of the speciality of liver transplant. Later that year, he was nominated as Honorary Professor of Syzganov National Scientific Centre of Surgery, Almaty Kazakhstan.

Subhash Gupta

Prof Mohamed Rela, is a liver transplant surgeon with over 25 years of experience in the field. He has been a consultant surgeon and Professor of Liver surgery at Kings college hospital, London since 1993.He has been working in India since 2009 and now runs the busiest liver transplantation program in South India, performing over 200 liver transplants each year. He has authored over 400 peer-reviewed publications and a number of book chapters including a chapter in the latest edition of Gray’s Anatomy.

The annual Master Class in Liver Disease series started by him in 2011 is one of the most popular academic events in South Asia, regularly attended by over a 1000 delegates from most South Asian countries. He is currently a council member of the ILTS and Past-chair of the ILTS Pediatric committee.

Mohamed Rela

Dr. Mureo Kasahara has been with Kyoto University, Japan as a hepatic and transplant surgery. he is director of organ transplantation center in National Childrens Hopital, Tokyo, Japan. He has pediatric liver transplant experience, 80 cases per year, which covers 70% of Japanese Pediatric Liver Transplantation. He started his professional career in transplant surgery at Kyoto University School of Medicine as a hepatic and transplant surgeon from 1996. He also served as a fellow at the Liver Transplant Surgery Service in King’s College Hospital in London, UK. He is now the Head of Transplant Center in the internationally renowned National Center for Child Health and Development in Tokyo, Japan since 2010 where he has been performing a largest number of living related pediatric liver transplants for children from all over the world.

Mureo Kasahara

Dr. Ikagami is currently an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Kyushu University in Japan. He completed his training in Hepatobiliary Surgery at Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital, Japan and his Clinical Fellowship in Transplant Surgery at Baylor University Medical Center, USA. He is a multi-awarded author with over 398 English publications in the field of hepatobiliary transplant surgery.

Toru Ikagami

Dr Kaido is currently an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Medicine in Kyoto University, Japan. He completed his training in Surgery from Otsu Municipal Hospital. He is a multi-awarded researcher in the the field of hepato-pancreaticotobiliary surgery and was recently given the 2019 Outstanding Reviewer Award by HBSN.

Toshimi Kaido

Dr. Uemoto is currently a Director and Professor at the Department of Hepato-pancreatico-biliary Surgery and Transplantation at the Graduate School of Medicine in Kyoto University, Japan. He completed his Medical training at the Kyoto University and his Research Fellowship in Hammer-Smith Hospital, Royal College of London. He has authored several researches in the filed of hepatobiliary transplant surgery.

Shinji Uemoto

Dr. Egawa is currently a Professor of the Department of Surgery in Tokyo Women's Medical University. He completed his surgical training at Kyoto University Sakaide Kaisei and Shinkoori Hospitals in Japan and his Research fellowship at Kyoto University (PhD) and California Pacific Medical Center, USA. He is a Councilor at the Japan Society of Hepatology, Asian Society of Transplantation and the LDLT Study Group and is an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Transplantation.

Hiroto Egawa

Dr. Eguchi is currently a Professor and Chairman of Surgery at Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. He completed his Clinical Fellowship in Liver Transplantation and Hepatobiliary Surgery at Groningen University Hospital. He has app 3000 cases career with HPB and GI general surgery, especially living donor liver transplantation and living donor surgery. He also has huge laparoscopic surgery experience in GI and HPB fields, from which he published many mile stone papers including hybrid LD surgery and Lap pancreas resection.

Susumu Eguchi

Dr. Takatsuki is currently a Professor and the Chairman of the Department of Digestive and General Surgery in the University of the Ryukyus. He completed his Transplantation and Immunology Training at Kyoto University and Chang-Gung Memorial Hospital in Kaohsiung Taiwan. He has won several research awards in his field of expertise and was the recipient of various study grants from the Ministry of Education in Japan.

Mitsuhista Takatsuki

Sung-Gyu Lee , MD, PhD, is the chair professor of surgery at the University of Ulsan College of Medicine and Asan Medical Center, and the president and CEO of Asan Healthcare System. As one of the world’s best-known experts in the field of liver transplantation, he has invented various techniques and protocols for transplanting liver from living donor to patient. Over the past 30 years, he has created a number of global records in the field of liver transplantation. He has the leading techniques in the technical innovation of LDLT, two-to-one dual liver transplantations, liver transplantation of different ABO blood types, and laparoscopic hepatectomy. His achievements in hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery and liver transplantation have been internationally recognized. So far, he has published more than 400 academic papers.

Sung-Gyu Lee

Dr. Song is currently a Professor at the Asan Medical Center, Ulsan University College of Medicine in Seoul, Korea. He completed his Clinical Fellowship at Asan Medical Center. His research interests and expertise include living donor liver transplantation, clinical immunosuppression, ABO incompatible liver transplantation, hepatocellular carcinoma and biliary disease.

Gi-Won Song

Deok-Bog Moon, MD is the Professor, Hepato-Biliary Surgery and Liver Transplantation, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine,Seoul, Korea.He completed resident courses of General Surgery in 1997. Since 2001, he has been specialized in Hepato-Biliary Surgery and Liver Transplantation at Asan Medical Center.In the field of liver transplantation, he is an expert in recipient surgery including heaptectomy & implantation & hepatic artery anastomosis under microscope. Research interests are hepatic resection, hepatocelluar carcinoma, Klatskin’s tumor, liver transplantation, biliary and pancreatic surgery.

Deok-Bog Moon

Prof Dong Hwan Jung holds a position of professor in Asan Medical Center, School of Medicine, Ulsan University since 2018. He completed his clinical fellowship in 2008 also at the same institution and his fields of expertise include living donor hepatectomy, post-transplant care, Hepatocellular carcinoma and minimally invasive liver surgery. He has also authored numerous practice-changing dissertations.

Dong Hwan Jung

Prof.Kyung-Suk Suh is currently a Professor in Seoul National University College of Medicine and the Director of the International affairs in Korean Society of Organ Transplantation since 2011. He completed his Surgical training at Seoul National University Hospital, Korea. His major fields of interest are liver transplantation and oncological surgery for hepato-biliary carcinoma.

Kyung-Suk Suh

Dr Lee is a Professor at Seoul National University, Korea. He is currently a hepatic and transplant surgeon at Samsung Medical Center and National Cancer Center. He has also been an LDLT consultant at Johns Hopkins University Hospital. He developed several innovative techniques to reduce biliary complications after liver transplantation such as high hilar dissection (HHD) and Tailored Telescopic Reconstruction (TTR) of the bile duct. His research expertise include hepatocyte transplantation, gene delivery, cancer stem cell, best immunosuppressant for HCC, bile duct ischemia induced by warm ischemia and polymorphism.

Kwang-Woong Lee

Dr. Yi is currently a Professor at Seoul National University College of Medicine in Korea. She completed her training at Ewha Womans University. She has special expertise in living donor liver transplantation and pediatric liver transplantation. Her multi-cited research works include surgical technique for maximum use of a marginal graft and pediatric transplantation and antiviral therapy for the recipients with hepatitis B virus associated liver disease.

Nam-Joon Yi

Professor Chung-Mau Lo is Hospital Chief Executive at The University of Hong Kong- Shenzhen Hospital, Chin Lan-Hong Professor and Chair of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery as well as Director of Liver Transplantation Centre at Queen Mary Hospital. He is internationally renowned for his expertise in hepatobiliary surgery, liver cancer and liver transplantation. He has published over 480 original articles in respected national and international journals, and authored 12 book chapters. His pioneering work in adult right lobe living donor liver transplantation has revolutionalized the practice of liver transplant world-wide and has put Hong Kong and China on the world map of liver transplant.

Chung-Mau Lo

Dr. Man is currently a Professor in the University of Hong Kong. She is also the President of the International Liver Transplantation Society (ILTS) and a founder member of Women Leaders in Transplantation (WLIL). She is the Deputy Editor of Transplantation as well as the Editorial Board Member of Annals of Surgery. She has published more than 150 original articles in international journals mainly focused in the area of liver graft injury and cancer recurrence after transplantation.

Nancy Kwan Man

Dr Jiahong Dong, MD, PhD, is a top expert of hepatobiliary surgery and liver transplantation. He is Executive President of Beijing Tsinghua Changgung Hospital, President of the Clinical Medicine School in Tsinghua University; and President of the Society for Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery in the Chinese Research Hospital Association. Dr Dong also serves as a committee member of the Chinese Surgical Association and the Chinese Transplantation Association. He is Executive Councilor of the International Society of Digestive Surgery (ISDS); a scientific committee member of the International HPB Association (IHPBA); an honorary foreign member of the French National Academy of Surgery, the American Surgical Association, and the European Surgical Association. Dr Dong received the first prize for the National Scientific and Technological Progress Award.

Jia-Hong Dong

Dr. Qian Luwas promoted to Associate Consultant in 2017, and took the position of Executive Head of Center of Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery as well as Head of Liver Transplant Center of Tsinghua University Affiliated Beijing Tsinghua Changgung Hospital since January of 2018.Mentored by Prof. Jiahong Dong, renowned academician of Chinese Engineering Academy, Dr. Lu has dedicated herself to basic and clinical research in the field of hepatopancreatobiliary surgery and liver transplant for 20 years. She was awarded four Basic Science grants from National Natural and Science Foundation of China as principal investigator or co-PI. Recognized by her achievements, She was honored Second Prize of the State Science and Technology Progress Award and First Prize of Chongqing Science and Technology Progress Award for once each, and was honored First Prize of Medical Achievement Award of Chinese PLA twice.

Qian Lu

S h u - s e n Z h e n g , A c a d e m i c i a n o f C h i n e s e A c a d e m y o f Engineering,Academician of the National Academy of Medical Sciences, France. Professor of Surgery, the famous surgical specialist in the fields of Organ transplantaiton and Hepato-pancreato-biliary surgery. Starting from the first successful liver transplantation in Queen Mary Hospital of Hong Kong University in October, 1991, Professor Zheng has devoted himself to the development of liver transplantation in China. He performed first liver transplantation in Hangzhou in 1993, setting off a new upsurge of liver transplantation in China. Up till now, he has completed 2800 cases of liver transplantation. He established the Hangzhou Criteria for HCC recepients selection in liver transplantation and the strategy of for prevention and management of HBV recurrence after liver transplantation. Prof. Zheng stands as the chief specialist in the first and unique National Basic Research Program (973 Program) in organ transplantation field named “Basic research of immunological mechanisms of chronic graft dysfunction”. He has published more than 400 articles in international journals and is the Chief Editor of the journal “Hepatobiliary & Pancreatic Diseases International (HBPD INT)” (SCI indexed) which is the first English professional journal in the field of hepatobiliary and pancreatic disease in China.

Shu-Sen Zheng

Dr. Zhu is currently the Director of Liver Transplantation Center and of the Clinical Center for Pediatric Liver Transplantation at Beijing Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University. He has been engaged in liver surgery and liver transplantation since 1991. Among his works, the first case of cross-auxiliary double domino donor liver transplantation was completed in 2013 and the first case of cross-auxiliary domino liver transplantation by exchange of partial liver between two patients with hypermethioninemia and OTCD was completed in 2018.

Zhi-Jun Zhu

Professor Chao-Long Chen is a pioneer liver transplant surgeon who performed the first successful liver transplantation in Asia in 1984, and by 2019, has accomplished 1900 more. He obtained fellowship training in liver transplantation under Professor Thomas Starzl at the University of Pittsburgh, USA. He is a recipient of various honors and distinctions, both locally and internationally. He became Professor of Surgery in 1993 and was subsequently bestowed with honorary PhD and professorship by acclaimed international universities. In 1994, he performed the first LDLT in Taiwan and was bestowed with the National Award for Outstanding Contribution in Science and Technology in 1995. He did the first split liver transplantation in Asia in 1997 and started the adult LDLT in Taiwan by 1999. Further, he performed the first dual graft LDLT in Taiwan in 2002, pioneered routine microsurgical biliary reconstruction in the world in 2006, and performed Taiwan’s first segment 2 monosegment LDLT in 2013. He was bestowed the ILTS Distinguished Service Award in 2019.

He was Superintendent of the Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital from 2003 and became Superintendent Emeritus since 2015. He has published more than 500 SCI-cited scientific articles, lectured in more than 300 international and overseas congresses, and has trained more than 360 fellows and observers from all across the world. He serves as associate editor of the American Journal of Transplantation and editorial board of Annals of Surgery among other high ranking scientific journals. He was elected as Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 2007 and as President of the International LDLT Study Group in 2020-21. He remains director of one of the leading global centers in LDLT.

Chao-Long Chen

Professor Xia serves as Committee Member of the International Liver Transplantation Society (ILTS) and an the International Living Donor Liver Transplantation (ILDLT). He is also the Director of the Professional Committee of Pediatric Transplantation in Chinese Medical Association for Organ Transplantation and of the Shanghai Organ Transplantation Committee. He has been responsible for the liver transplantation and liver surgery department at Renji Hospital which has performed more than 4800 cases of liver transplantation (LT). His expertise include living donor, split liver and dual graft LT. He has more than 220 papers published and his research interests include ischemia/reperfusion injury, primary liver cancer and post-LT immune tolerance.

Qiang Xia

Dr Chih-Che Lin is currently the director and professor at the Department of Surgery at Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taiwan. He obtained MD from Kaohsiung Medical University in 1995 and qualified his PhD from Imperial College London in 2010. He completed the surgical training of liver transplantation since 2000 in the liver transplantation center of Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. His research interests include liver transplantation, transplantation immunology and hepatocellular carcinoma.

He has authored over 100 research articles on topics such as living donor liver transplantation, paediatric hepatectomy and hepatitis B virus infection in liver transplantation. His work has been published in prestigious international peer-reviewed journals. He most recently published the treatment guideline of treating hepatocellular carcinoma by live donor liver transplantation in the journal of Hepatobiliary Surgery and Nutrition and protocol of active vaccination prophylaxis against de novo HBV infection when using HBc(+) donors in liver transplantation.

Chih-Che Lin

Cheng Yu Fan is the Professor of the Department of Radiology and Liver Transplantation Center at Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. He is the pioneer in liver cancer treatment, transplantation and interventional radiology, and has been supported by national research grants for more than 20 years. A graduate of the China Medical University, he completed his radiology training at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taiwan and Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, USA. After becoming the Professor of Radiology in 2003, he was subsequently bestowed with the title of Honorary Professor by several international universities. Furthermore, he has established the liver imaging and interventional radiology program as an international training center in Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. Through this, he has trained many international fellows from all around the world. He has published more than 300 scientific articles and has lectured in nearly 100 international congresses. He has received the prestigious awards, Symbol of National Quality and National Biotechnology Award and Medical Care Quality Award from Taiwan, in addition to the numerous international awards and recognitions, such as the Medical Contribution Medal in Central America. A well-known scientific physician, he is now one of the global leading experts in interventional radiology and liver transplant imaging.

Yu-Fan Cheng

Dr. Tsan-Shiun Lin specializes in plastic surgery, offering the most innovative techniques such as “combined microvascular anastomosis” for vessel and bile duct anastomosis, “subdermal pocket procedure” for release of venous congestion after microsurgical replantation with venous insufficiency, “one-stage secondary debulking procedure” for revision of bulky flap after flap reconstruction of limbs, “microsurgical biliary reconstruction” for biliary reconstruction in living donor liver transplantation.

Following completion of training in plastic and reconstructive department in Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, he moved to trauma department of Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and became the chief of Trauma department for 8 years. Then he moved to plastic and reconstructive department of Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital to be the chief until now.

His studies focused in microsurgery in the limbs, microsurgery in the liver transplantation, debulking procedure for bulky flap, microsurgical training for junior residents and interns.

Tsan-Shiun Lin

Chee Chien Yong is the Assistance Professor of the Department of General Surgery and Liver Transplantation Center at Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. He is specialist in intensive care, hepato-pancreatico-biliary surgery and liver transplantation. He is the supervisor of liver intensive care unit at Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital since January 2009. He focus on treatment of liver failure and post liver transplantation care. And he is member of examination board of Critical Care Medicine Association in Taiwan. And he performed first laparoscopic liver resection on October 2010 and first robotic assistant liver resection in Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital on March 2015. So far he personal accumulated more then 300 cases of minimal invasive liver resection. He is active in minimal invasive liver surgery and adoption living donor liver transplantation surgical technique for treatment of peri-hilar cholangiocarcinoma.

Chee-Chien Yong