Biography

I am both a clinical transplant surgeon and a researcher. Since arriving at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, 1998, I have been the leader of research efforts in kidney transplantation. I have been awarded the Ortho Career Development award by the American Society of Transplant Surgeons as well as the Paul I. Terasaki award by the American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogentics.
I have 50% of my time protected for research and this time is totally funded by research grants and my professorship. I also have a large, experienced research team that includes technologists, study coordinators, a research program coordinator and a full-time statistician. I have a long-standing research interest in the cause(s) of late renal allograft loss and the use of surveillance biopsies to identify and treat these causes. Through the analysis of our ever-expanding dataset here in Rochester and our multicenter collaborations (https://mtaconsortium.com), I have become interested in mathematical modeling of chronic injury and machine learning. My group has been extremely productive in this area and is recognized as leaders in the field.
One of my main career goals is to perform research that truly will improve the lives of transplant recipients. It has become clear to me that one of the major limitations to improving therapy is the fact that the current Banff classification system is too limited to provide a useful biomarker to assess injury. Thus, I have assembled a diverse, well-trained team of pathologists and researchers in order to determine if computer-assisted scoring can provide an improved method of assessing renal allograft histology.
Additionally, I believe that transplant practice can only be changed with dissemination and translation of key results. I am an active member of the American Societies of Transplantation and Transplant Surgeons, The American College of Surgeons, and The American Surgical Association. I regularly attend several national and international conferences while supporting travel for members of his group in order to facilitate. I also co-chair and help found the Transplant Therapeutics Consortium, a public private partnership between the transplant community and the US Food and Drug Administration aimed at developing novel surrogate endpoints for clinical trials. I also am the Director of the Multicenter Transplant Alliance, a multicenter clinical research consortium in transplantation.