Jan LERUT

Biography

Jan LERUT, MD, PhD; Emeritus Professor of Surgery (February 18th, 1951)
From the start of his surgical career he was very involved in the field of organ transplantation and HBP surgery. This interest resulted in a two years hepatobiliary and transplantation NATO-fellowship at the University Paris-Sud Centre Hépatobiliaire under Prof. BISMUTH and at the University Pittsburgh Medical Centre under Prof. STARZL. He was director of the abdominal transplant program at the Inselspital University Bern (CH) from 1987 to 1991 (under Prof.BLUMGART). From 1991 to 2016 he was Director of the Starzl Abdominal Transplant Unit, University Hospitals Saint Luc and Director of the UCL Transplant Center in Brussels. His surgical and professional career is particular because having taken place in 7 different linguistic and cultural environments (Dutch, French, German, English, Italian, Polish and Chinese speaking countries), a condition allowing him to have a good insight in the evolution and perception of surgery worldwide. He worked actively at bringing together Eastern and Western liver transplantation (LT) worlds. Many invited lectures and study visits in China, Hong Kong, Japan, South-Korea and Taiwan led to scientifically very successful collaborative East-West and European (EURHeCaLT) Hepatocellular cancer- Liver transplantation efforts.
He has served as president of the Belgian Society of Transplantation (BST), the Royal Belgian Society of Surgery (RBSS), the Eurotransplant Liver Allocation Committee (ET-ELIAC), the European Society for Organ Transplantation (ESOT) and the International Liver Transplantation Society (ILTS).He is member of the UEMS-European Board of Transplantation Surgery (EBTS) and member of the Belgian Superior Health Council. He is the actual president of the International Society of Liver Surgeons (ISLS). He serves worldwide as a referee in many different transplantation matters (postgraduate transplantation courses, research and nomination committees, data safety boards,expert opinion requests and audits)
He published 381 peer-reviewed articles (H-index 53; 13303 citations; total IF 1150,34). https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4015-463X) and authored 31 book chapters and 25 scientific films. He organized 52 surgical and transplantation meetings. He made over 800 communications on national and international congresses, merely devoted to general surgery, liver surgery and transplantation. He is editor of the book ‘Regenerative Medicine and Organ Transplantation”. He received the ILTS and ELITA distinguished service awards as well as the TTS “Best investigator driven study” and “Mentorship, Education and Training in Transplantation” awards. He is member the French Academy of Surgery.
He has been visiting professor at many renowned institutions such as Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic Foundations (USA); the medical faculties of Tokyo University (Jpn); Universidade Sao Paolo (Br); La Cattolica, Santiago de Chili (Cl), La Calle, Cali Colombia (Co), and Warsaw Medical Universities (Pl); King Faisal Specialist Hospital Riyadh (SA) and Chang Gung Memorial Hospital Kaohsiung (Tw). He is honorary director of the Transplantation Institute at the International Shulan Hospital, University of Zhejiang in Hangzhou (Cn).
His investigator driven research interests focus on the development of technical refinements in liver transplantation, transplantation oncology, and especially the use of minimal immunosuppression and tolerance induction in liver and the collaboration between East and Western surgical transplantation worlds