Professor Sandy Feng, MD PhD

Professor of Surgery in Residence
Vice Chair of Research, Department of Surgery
University of California San Francisco
Editor-in Chief
American Journal of Transplantation

Dr Jonathan Hind

BMedSci, BM, BS, FRCPCH

Consultant in Paediatric Hepatology, Intestinal Rehabilitation and Transplantation
Deputy clinical director, Variety Children’s Hospital
King’s College Hospital, London
President-Elect: Intestinal Rehabilitation and Transplant Association
ESPGHAN: European Intestinal Transplant Network member and ESPGHAN mentor
BSPGHAN: Nutrition and Intestinal Failure Working Group
RCPCH: Gastroenterology CSAC quality advisor

Jonathan is a paediatric hepatologist at King’s College Hospital in London. He developed and leads the intestinal rehabilitation and transplant service there, having gained experience in Birmingham and Pittsburgh; and linking with Great Ormond Street Hospital. His interest in technology and new ways of working led him to develop a remote monitoring solution in conjunction with his patients, many of whom live far from King’s. Jonathan also has leadership roles as the deputy clinical director of the children’s hospital at King’s, nationally as a quality advisor for the RCPCH and internationally as the President-Elect of the intestinal rehabilitation and transplant association.

Prof Jean de VILLE de GOYET

Head of the Pediatric Department AbdominalSurgery and Transplantation at ISMETT – UPMC hospital in Palermo (Sicily)
Associate Editor Journal Pediatric Transplantation

Graduated from the Catholic University of Louvain (Brussels, Belgium) in 1980 and trained in surgery, pediatric surgery and liver transplantation at the Cliniques St Luc (Brussels, Belgium). Clinical Consultant posts were successively at Brussels paediatric liver transplantation center (1988-1998), and at Birmingham Children’s Hospital (1998-2003). Professor of paediatric surgery since 2003, he then held the post of liver transplantation program director at the Cliniques St Luc Brussels (Head of Abdominal Surgery and Transplantation Department / 2003-2007), and at the Bambino Gesu Children’s Hospital Rome (Head of Surgery and Transplantation Department / 2007-2016). He is currently head of the Pediatric Department Abdominal Surgery and Transplantation at ISMETT – UPMC hospital in Palermo (Sicily) since 2016. He is associate editor at the Journal “Pediatric Transplantation”. His other interests and research topics are in the field of liver transplantation and surgery, extrahepatic portal hypertension and portal system malformations.

Dr. Jeff Zaltzman

Dr. Zaltzman completed both his undergraduate studies and medical degree at McGill University. He did a residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Manitoba, and he completed his nephrology and transplant training and a master’s in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Jeff Zaltzman joined the Division of Nephrology at St. Michael’s Hospital in 1993, where he played an active role in the resurgence of the Renal Transplant Program. He was the program’s director from 2000 to 2016. He has been medical director of the Kidney and Metabolism program at Unity health (previous known as Diabetes Comprehensive Care Program) since 2007 and the chief of the Division of nephrology since 2016. Dr. Zaltzman was the chief medical officer of Trillium Gift of Life Network Ontario. He chaired the kidney working group at the Canadian Society of Transplant, and was involved with the Kidney Foundation of Canada at both the provincial and national levels. He was the Chair of the SMH Medical Advisory committee, and is currently chair of Unity Health Medical Advisory committee. He is a Professor in the department of Medicine at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Zaltzman developed a special interest in medical education, serving at St. Michael’s as director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program and educational director of Nephrology from 1994 to 2015. He also chaired the Research Ethics Board (REB) from 2000 to 2002.

His research interests are in the areas of chronic allograft rejection, cardiovascular issues, renal function in transplantation and transplant ethics.

Dr. Cyril Moers

MD, PhD
Transplant surgeon (50%) and tenure track assistant professor (50%)
University Medical Center Groningen

Dr. Cyril Moers is transplant surgeon and tenure track assistant professor in the University Medical Center Groningen, The Netherlands. His recent research has covered a whole spectrum of clinical and pre-clinical studies in kidney transplantation, focusing on interventions before or during organ preservation to better conserve organ quality and to quantify the impact that donor characteristics have on post-transplant outcome. He was secretary of the scientific steering committee of the international Machine Preservation Trial and authored several key publications on this topic, two of which appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine. His line of research now focuses on pre-transplant organ resuscitation and evaluation, for which he has been awarded a Kolff junior postdoc grant, a ZonMw Klinische Fellows grant and an Innovation Grant from the Dutch Kidney Foundation. In 2019, he received an ERC Starting Grant for the current PRE-IMAGE project.

Dr Dinen Parbhoo

Transplant Hepatologist
WDGMC

Mbali Misimeki

Social Work Honors degree (UJ), EAP
Transplant Social Worker

Johan Nel

Nephrologist
University of Stellenbosch

Associate Professor Greg Calligaro

MBChB, FCP (SA), Cert. Pulm (SA)

Associate Professor Greg Calligaro is a senior specialist in the Division of Pulmonology at Groote Schuur Hospital (GSH), and a research coordinator at the Centre for Lung Infection and Immunity of the University of Cape Town (UCT) Lung Institute. He completed a Fellowship in thoracic transplantation at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney in 2016. His clinical work focuses on interstitial lung diseases, lung transplantation, cystic fibrosis, and pulmonary vascular disease. He has helped to establish an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) service at GSH and is the medical lead of the heart and lung transplant service.

Dr Mark Eagar

MBChB, FCA(SA), MMed, Cert. Crit Care

Dr Mark Eagar obtained his MBChB cum laude from the University of the Free State. He was awarded the medal for the best final year student by the Medical Society of South Africa. He started specialist training in anaesthesiology at WITS University where he obtained a diploma in anaesthesia and a fellowship from the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa. He was awarded the Jack Abelsohn Medal by the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa for the Fellowship examination. Dr Eagar subsequently obtained a sub-speciality certificate in critical care from the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa. He has been a member of the transplant team at WITS Donald Gordon Hospital since 2008 where he is involved in transplant anaesthesia and post-operative care of transplant patients. He is a committee member of the Anaesthetic Foundation, a member of The South African Society of Anaesthetists, a member of the Critical Care Society of South Africa and registered with the General Medical Council – United Kingdom.

Dr David Thomson

MBChB, FCS(SA), MMed (Surg), Cert. Crit Care

David Thomson is a transplant surgeon and critical care specialist at Groote Schuur Hospital and the University of Cape Town.

He completed his undergraduate training in 2002 at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal and went on to specialise in surgery at the University of Cape Town completing his FCS(SA) in 2011 and MMed(Surgery) in 2012 and Critical Care in 2015. Awarded the Garron Caine Travelling Fellowship he attended the Harvard Centre for Surgery and Public Health, Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital transplant units in Boston in 2014. He currently works as a surgeon in the liver and renal transplantation and leads the critical care ECMO program supporting the heart and lung transplant teams.

His interests are medical education and system improvement. He created the massive open online course Organ Donation: From Death to Life hosted on Coursera.org to improve education around organ donation and transplantation. He is the current President of the Southern African Transplantation Society and developed a national report on Organ and Tissue Donation in South Africa: Creating a National Strategic Roadmap in collaboration with the International Society for Organ Donation and Procurement. He worked on the World Brain Death Project and is the lead author on the South African Guidelines for Determination of Death published in 2021.

As Africa / Middle East councillor he would look to use his experience to build on The Transplantation Society’s work and improve organ donation and transplant systems in the region.

Dr Charles Sanyika

MBChB MMed (Radiology) FCRad(SA)

Interventional radiologist based at the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa. A lecturer in the department of Radiology at Wits university and is a member of the examiners panel for radiology at the College of Medicine of South Africa (CMSA). External examiner for the Interventional radiology department, at Muhimbili University hospital, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania as part of the Road2IR program. Qualified with an MBChB at the University of Zimbabwe.

Trained in radiology at the University of Natal, Durban, South Africa. Had the introduction and initial training of Interventional radiology (IR) during his training in Durban under Prof Peter Corr, Dr Jay Maharaj and Dr Duncan Royston. Expanded training in IR by spending time in UK at St Thomas and Guys hospitals under Prof Andy Adam and Kings College under Prof John Karani.

Dr Charles Sanyika is a member and current President of the South African Interventional Society (SAIntS).

Founder member of the Society of African Interventional Radiology and Endovascular therapy (SAFIRE) Member and member of the EXCO for the Hepato Panctreato Biliary Association of Southern Africa (HPBASA) Member of international Interventional radiology societies: The Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE) and The Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) Dr Charles Sanyika has presented at several local and international congresses. IR interests include Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary interventions, Transplant interventions and Interventional Oncology.

Prof Elmi Muller

MBChB, MMed, PhD, MBA.

Dr Warren Lowman

MBBCh; MMed(Wits);FC Path (SA)

Consultant Pathologist in Clinical Microbiology and Infection Prevention & Control, Pathcare/Vermaak Pathologists and Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre.
Lecturer, Department of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, Wits School of Pathology, University of the Witwatersrand

Qualifications & Education
1. MBBCh 2002, University of the Witwatersrand
2. FCPath (Micro) 2008, SA College of Medicine
3. MMed (Micro) 2011, University of the Witwatersrand

I am a pathologist in microbiology passionate about bugs with a particular focus on the clinical application and integration of microbiological diagnostic services in specialized medical care. Bacteriology is my first love and I have a particular interest in hospital pathogens and the associated diagnostic and antimicrobial treatment aspects of these bugs. Surveillance of hospital-acquired infections and the application of data derived from hospital surveillance systems is another key focus area. I am actively involved in these activities on a daily basis where I balance my time between laboratory-based diagnostic work and clinical ward rounds focusing on ICU/transplant-related microbiology and infection prevention and control aspects. I am actively involved in numerous academic-related activities, am the current chairperson of the South African Society of Clinical Microbiology, and am passionate about sharing knowledge in the field.

Outside of work I am kept busy by my 3 sons, wonderful wife, nature, cooking and the odd-game of golf!

Prof Mignon McCulloch

MBBCH DCH DTM&H FRCPCH FCP(Paeds)

Full Professor & Head of Clinical Unit of Paediatric Nephrology and Solid Organ Transplantation at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital and Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town. She is also a Paediatric Intensive Care (PICU) consultant.

Immediate Past president of the International Paediatric Transplantation Society (IPTA) involved in promoting paediatric transplantation worldwide. She is also the Immediate Past-President of the South African Paediatric Association (SAPA) dealing specifically with COVID issues in the last 2 years as an important advocacy voice for children

Her other interests include Paediatric Nephrology and Care of Critically ill children specifically with AKI requiring all forms of dialysis and Transplantation (all organs) in infants and children. This includes doing training of Fellows and outreach work in various parts of Africa developing paediatric renal and transplant programs. She is also an amateur surfer

Mary Duncan

RN. RM. Dip in OT

Mary Duncan obtained her theatre nurse training at Groote Schuur hospital in Cape Town, after which she was active in cardiac and transplant theatres. She proceeded to work in medical sales which included a 2 month stint in USA being trained on the use of surgical stapling equipment. She then lived in Botswana for 3 years and eventually came back into nursing in 2009. Mary has been working at Wits Donald Gordon Medical Center for past 12yrs in the transplant arena having covered both adult and paediatric liver and kidney transplant.

Mande Toubkin

National Emergency, Trauma, Transplant, Disaster management and Corporate social investment manager, Netcare

Dip General Nursing, Dip Midwifery (Honors), Dip Paediatric Nursing Science (Honors), Trauma Nursing (Honors), Hospital Nursing Management, Aviation Health Care Providers, FSA Interaction Management, Dip Medical and Surgical Nursing Trauma (Honors), Dip Medical and Surgical Nursing Critical Care (Honors), MSC (Medicine) (EM) Emergency Medicine.

Tim Pennel

Head of Division and Chris Barnard Chair of Cardiothoracic Surgery. UCT

Professor Timothy Pennel is the Head of Division and Chris Barnard Chair of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Cape Town. His niche area of expertise focuses on heart and lung failure as well endothelial tissue engineering. As a registrar Tim simultaneously completed his Master’s degree (MMED) and PhD on synthetic vascular graft optimisation, before obtaining his Fellowship in Cardiothoracic Surgery. His laboratory research focuses on the mechanism of vascular graft healing in high-porosity conduits, electrospun degradable polymers and decellularized xenografts. Tim serves as an executive member of the International Society for Cardiovascular Biology (ISACB) and International Symposium on Vascular Tissue Engineering (ISVTE) as well as multiple local clinical societies. In 2017, Tim established the first lung transplant programme Africa for public sector patients and as director of heart and lung transplantation at UCT Tim oversees thoracic transplantation at Groote Schuur and Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital. His vision is to re-establish University Hospitals as centres of excellence for quaternary based care whilst training emerging Cardiothoracic surgeons as clinicians and researchers.

Thozama Siyotula

Specialist paediatric surgeon in the division of Paediatric surgery Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, Cape Town
MMED Masters of medicine through the university cape town 2021 (University of Cape Town)
FCPS Fellow of the college of paediatric surgeons 2021
MBBCH Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBCH) University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg 2011
Convener 5th year paediatric surgery undergraduate, University of Cape Town
Committee Member: International Pediatric Transplant Association Multi-Organ Transplant Committee
Research interest include post-surgical neonatal outcomes, paediatric transplantation, hepatic arteriovenous malformations and Global surgery. She aspires to be a clinician scientist. Publication Pediatr Surg Int (2022).
Recipient of the Mail and Guardian 200 Young South Africans of 2020, previous president of SAPSTA 2019/2020 and SASSIT executive member 2017/2018.
“The greatest views are after the hardest climbs, but summit we must”

Mzamo Mbelle

Information to follow

Martin Börgel

Martin Börgel began his professional life training as a paediatric nurse and working for two years at the St. Franziskus Hospital in Münster, while studying business administration in Osnabrück, specialising in healthcare. After receiving his diploma, he worked for several years as an auditor for Solidaris Unternehmensberatung Köln, where he was responsible for the expert audits of the Eurotransplant and DSO foundations. Since 2002 he has been managing director of the German Society for Tissue Transplantation (DGFG), which until 2007 operated as DSO-G, a subsidiary of the German Foundation for Organ Transplantation (DSO). Martin Börgel is a member of the European Eye Bank Association (EEBA) and General Secretary of the World Unit of Tissue Banks (WUTBA).

Diletta Trojan

Diletta Trojan holds a Professional National Register in Biology; and a Specialised University Degree in Medical Biology from the University of Padova. She works as Director of Fondazione Banca dei Tessuti di Treviso and is the Responsible Person for all tissue bank activities. Previously she served as Quality Manager and Research activities which included Quality and operations management, Support of EU projects, Collaboration with competent authorities and European establishment, Publications management and Collaboration with surgeons for clinical research and development of new tissues.

Anna-Katharina Salz

Anna-Katharina Salz is employee of the Research & Development department at Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gewebetransplantation (German Society for Tissue Transplantation, DGFG), focusing on (inter)national project management and research collaborations to develop new technological methods to improve tissue preparations. Before joining DGFG in 2019, she worked several years in pharmaceutical industry at Janssen-Cilag GmbH were she had the global process responsibility for the management of delegation documents for clinical trials and lead international and cross-functional project teams. Anna obtained her diploma degree in biology at the Technical University of Darmstadt and did her doctorate in experimental ophthalmology at RWTH Aachen University. She is a member of the European Eye Bank Association (EEBA).

Jan Kniese

Jan Kniese studied medicine in Hannover, training in internal medicine at the department of cardiology, Klinikum Siloah, Hannover. Since 2007 specialist in internal medicine and emergency medicine. Until 2015 senior physician centre for internal medicine, Klinikum Siloah, Hannover. Actual responsible physician for the German Society for Tissue Transplantation – Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gewebetransplantation

Silke Wahl

Silke Wahl studied human and molecular biology at the University of Saarland and did her doctorate at the department of anatomy of the university clinic Homburg. Since 2015 she is working for the Eye Clinic Sulzbach Saar where she helped to establish the Knappschafts tissue bank Sulzbach in collaboration with the German Society for Tissue Transplantation (DGFG). She is responsible for the quality security, research and involved in tissue processing. Since 2018 she is also the deputy responsible person according to pharmaceutical law for the Knappschafts tissue bank Sulzbach. She is a member of the European Eye Bank Association (EEBA).

Chris van Diemen

Chris has a BAppSc (Medical Laboratory Science) from the University of South Australia and a Masters in Health Administration from University of NSW. Chris has worked many parts of Australia from remote “outback” towns to regional and capital cities. This was primarily as a scientist and manager in public and private pathology services. 15 years ago Chris and his wife (pre children) settled back in Melbourne Victoria when Chris began working for the Australian Red Cross Blood Service – now Australian Red Cross Lifeblood and he has held a number of roles within Donor Services, Production, and Customer Service. Chris has also been contracted to the Donor Tissue Bank of Victoria tissue bank supporting operations and business development for 5 years and most recently used this knowledge of the tissue sector to support the development and expansion of non-blood products for Lifeblood – in particular as the Product Owner for FMT and Human Milk.

Heather Machin

Dr Machin is Chair of the Global Alliance of Eye Bank Associations (GAEBA). She is the Senior Project Manager, Biobank Principal Investigator, and Lions Fellow at the Lions Eye Donation Service - Centre for Eye Research Australia, University of Melbourne. In addition, she is the Project Officer to the Eye Bank Association of Australia and New Zealand; Representative to the Lions Clubs International Eye Bank Working Group, the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness and Vision2020 Australia; and is a Member of the Australian Organ and Tissue Authorities Eye and Tissue Advisory Committee. She has worked in over 30 countries through ORBIS International’s Flying Eye Hospital and the Fred Hollows Foundation NZ, in her capacity as an ophthalmic nurse and nursing director. She led the development of GAEBA’s ethical framework ‘The Barcelona Principles’ and has contributed to the development of the new WHO’s 'Global Action Framework for Tissues for Transplantation'. She has receiving numerous awards and grants and published widely. Finally, she completed her PhD whereby she examined if Australia should export corneas to meet global demand.