Thank you, Mr. President. Good morning, everyone. I’m an organ transplant surgeon, a physician and surgeon for 45 years. I’m of the second generation of transplant physicians and surgeons, following in the footsteps of Joseph Murray, who was the recipient of the Nobel Prize for kidney transplantation, a mentor to me, a member of this Academy.
My home hospital is the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. As an academic, I’m a Professor of Surgery at the Harvard Medical School. As a scientist, my interest is to expand the opportunity of transplantation for patients with organ failure around the world, and do so by a reproducibility, a consistency of assessing the organ in advance before transplantation. I’ve had the honour to be the President of the organ donation agency that oversees transplantation in the United States. I’ve had the honor to be the President of The Transplantation Society, that has representatives in more than 100 countries that have transplant services around the world, and I’ve traveled to 75 countries to participate and develop organ donation and transplantation in those countries.
My work with the Academy and, by the way, as an identity of the Chief Medical Officer of the New England Organ Bank, which I’ve been associated with for 25 years, is to achieve an ethically proper and scientifically achievable expansion of deceased organ donation in all countries that have these services and to bring an ethically proper living organ donor transplantation that safeguards and protects the well-being of the living donor.
So that is my work and effort, and again I thank you for the opportunity of making this presentation. Thank you, President Arber. It’s a special honor for me to receive this from the Chancellor, for whom I have great regard.