Key Dates
6 May 2008
Notification of Acceptances
26 May 2008
Early Registration Cut-off Date
9 June 2008
Late breaking Abstract Submission Date
2 July 2008
Pre & Post Congress Tours
2 July 2008
Social Program Bookings
2 July 2008
Congress Day Tours
9 July 2008
Accommodation Bookings
9 July 2008
Accommodation Deposit deadline
Friday 1st August 2008
Online and hard copy registrations will close midday
9-10 August 2008
Postgraduate Weekend Courses
10-14 August 2008
Congress Opens
With thanks to
Dr Mark Pescovitz
Mark D. Pescovitz, MD, is Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Surgery and Professor of Microbiology/Immunology at Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana where he has been since 1988. He received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Northwestern University in Chicago and completed general and abdominal transplant surgery training at the University of Minnesota. His surgery training was interrupted by a 4-year research fellowship in the Immunology Branch of the National Cancer Institute focusing on porcine immunology. He is certified by both the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Histocompatibility and Immunology.
Research interests include porcine T- cell immunology, B-cell immunology, diabetes, clinical transplant immunosuppression, and cytomegalovirus disease. Dr. Pescovitz has served on the UNOS Kidney/Pancreas and Membership and Professional Standards Committees, was Region 10 councilor and was on the executive board of directors. An Associate Editor of the American Journal of Transplantation, he also serves on the editorial boards of Transplantation, Clinical Transplantation and Reviews on Clinical Transplantation. He has authored 225 scientific publications.
His wife, Dr. Ora Pescovitz, is Executive Associate Dean for Research at Indiana University School of Medicine and President and CEO of the Riley Children’s Hospital. They have 3 children.
Dr. Pescovitz was the ASTS Sandoz Fellow in 1987-1989.
In 2006, he led a team of surgeons and anesthesiologists that assisted doctors at Moi Teaching Hospital in Eldoret Kenya in the performance of their first kidney transplants. He was awarded the honorary title of “Village Elder” for this work.
He has been an active member of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons since 1990 and has served as a member of the Bylaws and the Fundamentals of Clinical Research in Transplantation Committees. He has been active with the American Society of Transplantation as a member of the Guidelines, Kidney/Pancreas, and Clinical Trials Committees. He has been an abstract reviewer for the American Transplant Congress since it inception, and has been a member, served on the executive council, and was co-chair of the 2005 ATC program committee.
Robert A. Montgomery, MD, DPhil
Robert A. Montgomery, MD, DPhil, is an Associate Professor of Surgery, Director of the Incompatible Kidney Transplant Program, Chief of the Division of Transplantation, and Director of the Comprehensive Transplant Center, at the Johns Hopkins University and Hospital. He received his Medical education at the University of Rochester where he was the valedictorian of his class. He received his PhD at the University of Oxford, England in molecular immunology. Montgomery completed his general surgical and multi-organ transplantation training at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was a postdoctoral fellow in Human Molecular Genetics, also at Johns Hopkins.
Dr. Montgomery has been involved in the development of innovative approaches to expanding live donor renal transplantation including: the laparoscopic donor nephrectomy, positive crossmatch and ABO incompatible transplantation, paired kidney exchange, and altruistic donor programs. His work with patients in these programs has been featured on the Today Show, Good Morning America, The CBS, ABC and NBC Evening News, CNN, The Discovery Channel, and in USA Today, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. He was part of the team that performed the world's first live donor kidney removal using minimally invasive techniques. He led the team that performed the first triple swap kidney transplant and 5-way domino transplant. He is considered a world's expert on kidney transplantation for highly-sensitized and ABO incompatible patients. His other clinical interests include the use of expanded criteria donors and pulsatile perfusion pumping to preserve and rescue these organs. Dr. Montgomery is the principle investigator on a Health and Human Services grant to study methods of optimizing utilization of kidneys from deceased donors. He runs an NIH funded laboratory which is focused on the mechanisms underlying the immunomodulatory effect of plasmapheresis, as well as gene and cell based therapies for ameliorating ischemia/reperfusion injury to transplanted organs.
Dr. Montgomery is a member of many Surgical Societies. He has received important awards and distinctions including a Fulbright Scholarship and a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship and memberships in the Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha academic honor societies. He has been awarded multiple scholarships from The American College of Surgeons and The American Society of Transplant Surgeons.
Dr Norio Yoshimura, M.D., Ph. D., FACS
Norio Yoshimura, M.D., Ph.D. is a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Organ Transplant and General Surgery, Director of the kidney transplant center at the Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine and Hospital. He received his medical education and ph.D. at the Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine. He was a research scientist from 1983 to 1985 at the Department of Surgery, Division of Immunology and Organ transplantation, University of Texas at Houston directed by professor Barry D. Kahan. Ph.D., MD..
Dr. Yoshimura has been involved in the development of new immunosuppressive drug, FTY 720.
He started ABO incompatible kidney transplantation in 1990 and performed over forty patients until now. From 1999 when he has a responsibility to the department of organ transplantation, survival of ABO incompatible graft is 100%. He also has experiences of Tx with positive crossmatch patients.
Dr. Yoshimura is a member of many Surgical Societies, namely The American college of Surgeons, ASTS, ILTS, ESOT, and councilor of The Japanese Surgical Associations and Japan Society for Organ Transplantation.
Return to the State of The Art Program
