Beatriz Domínguez-Gil, MD, PhD, joined the Organización Nacional de Trasplantes (ONT) in November 2006 and became its Director General in May 2017. ONT is the national authority responsible for the oversight, coordination and organization of the donation and clinical use of organs, tissues and cells in Spain. Dr. Domínguez-Gil is immediate past chair of the Committee of Transplantation of the Council of Europe (CD-P-TO), president of the Iberoamerican Network/Council on Donation and transplantation (RCIDT) and member of the World Health Organization Task Force to promote ethical practices in the donation and transplantation of organs, tissues and cells. Dr. Domínguez-Gil co-chairs the Council of Europe Guide for the Quality and Safety of Organs for Transplantation (6th-8th Editions). She is past chair of the European Donation and Transplant Coordination Organization (EDTCO), past councilor to The Transplantation Society (TTS) and member of its Ethics Committee, and past chair of the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism. She has more than 130 publications in scientific journals and book chapters.

Division of Critical Care Medicine,
Montreal Children’s Hospital, McGill University Health Centre;
Professor of Pediatrics, McGill University;
Associate Investigator, MUHC Research Institute;
Medical Advisor, Deceased Organ Donation, Canadian Blood Services

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Dr. Shemie’s area of interest is organ replacement during critical illness and the continuum between life, death and oxygen delivery. He is a pediatric critical care physician, ECMO specialist and trauma team leader at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, McGill University Health Centre. He is a Professor of Pediatrics at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, McGill University and honourary staff in the Department of Critical Care Medicine, Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto. He is medical advisor, deceased organ donation, with Canadian Blood Services. His academic focus is advancing the science and practice of deceased organ donation. His research interests include the clinical and policy impact of organ failure support technologies, the development and implementation of national ICU-based leading practices in organ donation and research at the intersection of end-of-life care, death determination and deceased donation.

President & CEO, Gift of Life Donor Program

Howard Nathan is the longest-serving Chief Executive of any organ procurement organization in the United States, recently celebrating his 43rd anniversary with Gift of Life Donor Program in July 2021. Since 1974, the program has coordinated more than 54,000 organs for transplantation and approximately 2.0 million tissue transplants.

Gift of Life is one of the oldest of the 57 organ procurement organizations in the United States and under Mr. Nathan’s leadership has grown to be the largest organ donation program in the country, with a network of 15 transplant centers with 40 organ-specific programs and 128 donor hospitals.

In 2020, for the 13th consecutive year, Gift of Life Donor Program is the nation’s leading OPO, coordinating 619 organ donors, resulting in 1,621 organ transplants, the most life-saving organs for transplant among all 58 U.S. OPOs.

Considered one of the nation’s leading authorities on organ and tissue donation, Mr. Nathan is a regular presenter at national and international organ and tissue procurement, transplantation, and medical/healthcare conferences. He and has published more than 400 scientific papers and abstracts during his career and has travelled to over 30 countries to promote best practices in organ donation and transplantation.

He has served on numerous leadership boards including: United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), Association of Organ Procurement Organization (AOPO), North American Transplant Coordinators Organization (NATCO), International Society for Organ Donation and Procurement (ISODP), Donate Life America (DLA), LifeLogics, Inc., MTF Biologics (MTF) Board of Trustees, National Disease Research Interchange (NDRI), National Kidney Foundation (NKF), Organ Donation & Transplantation Alliance (The Alliance), and the Governor Robert P. Casey Memorial Trust Fund Organ Donation Advisory Committee (ODAC), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, among others.

Mr. Nathan has appeared on hundreds of local, national and international television news and talk shows and has received numerous outstanding achievement awards, most recently Doctor of Humane Letters from Juniata College (2021), Lions Eye Bank of Delaware Valley “Knight of the Blind” Award (2017), Juniata College “Alumni Achievement Award” (2017), Donate Life America "Nicholas Green Lifetime Achievement Award” (2017), Transplant Recipients International Organization, Inc. (TRIO) Lifetime Achievement Award (2018), the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO) President’s Award (2018), and Main Line Today “Healthcare Heroes” Award (2019).

National Medical Director, Australian Organ and Tissue Authority

Associate Professor Helen Opdam is the National Medical Director of the Australian Organ and Tissue Authority. She is a Senior Intensive Care Specialist at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne and Director of Warringal Private Hospital Intensive Care Unit.

Helen has been involved in organ donation since 1998, initially in developing an audit to determine the potential for organ donation. She was the inaugural Victorian State Medical Director for Organ and Tissue Donation at the time that the National Reform to boost donation in Australia began in 2009. She is a Council member of the International Society for Organ Donation and Procurement, and participates on key Australian committees including the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society (ANZICS) Death and Organ Donation Committee and the National Health and Medical Research Council Expert Advisory Group for the development of ethical guidelines for organ transplantation from deceased donors.

She is a regular invited speaker at national and international conferences.

Professor, Department of Surgery, Konkuk University Hospital

Ik Jin Yun, MD, PhD. is a Professor of Surgery at Konkuk University College of Medicine, the former Director of Transplant Center and department of Surgery. He has been a transplantation surgeon since 1996 and major in kidney and liver transplantation surgery. He is also the councilor of ISODP and Vital link Korea which is the NGO for the development and promotion for the organ donation. He is also the editor-in-chief of Korean Journal of Transplantation and executive member of directors of the Korean Society for transplantation. He is also a member of The Transplantation Society (TTS) and AST and ESOT. His academic interests are on the xenotransplantation and since 2011, he has received national funds for xeno-organ transplantation and going on experiments for the pig to NHP organ transplantation. He has been elected to the president of Korean Xenotransplantation Association (KXA) at this year.

TBA

Critical Care Subspecialist and Transplant Surgeon

David Thomson, MBChB, FCS(SA), MMed(Surg), Cert Crit Care is a consultant surgeon in the Transplant Unit and a subspecialist in Critical Care Department 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. 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 in Boston in 2014. He completed his sub-specialist qualification in Critical Care in 2015 and currently works in the ICU, directing the ECMO program at Groote Schuur Hospital and is still active in kidney and liver transplantation. David has an interest in medical education and promoting organ donation and transplantation and created the ongoing massive open online course Organ Donation: From Death to Life hosted on Coursera.org and runs ECMO training workshops nationally.

CEO, Australian Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation Authority

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Lucinda Barry is the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation Authority. Lucinda has a wealth of experience and knowledge in health care. In her exemplary career, she has held leadership roles within government, the public service and in health care management and delivery. Lucinda commenced her career as a Registered Nurse, specialising in Emergency and Major Trauma before becoming a Director of Nursing. Her career then moved into public policy, where she reached the highest level being appointed as the Prime Minister’s Senior Adviser on health and social policy.

Lucinda leads the national program to increase organ and tissue donation for transplantation in Australia. She chairs numerous committees, is a member of the National Organ Donation Retrieval and Transplantation Committee, the Jurisdictional Eye and Tissue Steering Committee, the COVID-19 Australian Transplantation and Donation Rapid Response Taskforce and the National Indigenous Kidney Transplantation Taskforce. Lucinda is the Oceania coordinator on the International Advisory Panel for the Commonwealth Tribute to Life and is a member of the COVID-19 International sharing forum. She is an invited speaker at both the national and international level.

Associate Medical Director – Deceased Organ Donation, NHS Blood and Transplant

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Dr. Dale Gardiner is the Associate Medical Director – Deceased Organ Donation, at NHS Blood and Transplant and a Consultant in Adult Intensive Care Medicine at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.

His professional interests are medical ethics, the diagnosis of death and deceased organ donation. Dr Gardiner is chair of Nottingham’s Ethics of Clinical Practice Committee and co-chair of the deceased donation working group for ELPAT. He served for four years as a member of the UK Donation Ethics Committee until its closure in 2016.

Originally, he came from Australia but migrated to the UK in 2002

Managing Trustee, MOHAN Foundation

Currently he is President Elect of the Indian Society of Organ Transplantation and past President of the Nephrology, Urology & Transplantation Society of SAARC countries. He is the editor of the Editor the Indian Transplant Newsletter and advisory board member of the Indian Jr of Transplantation. A practicing urologist and a renal transplant surgeon at Madras Medical Mission Hospital in Chennai, he has also been active in the field of digital health and is the President of the Telemedicine Society of India, Tamil Nadu Chapter and course director for a foundation course for telemedicine for doctors in India. He has edited 6 books on Urology and Transplant Law. He has 14 book chapters, 130 articles in peer reviewed Journals to his credit with over 1,000 citations. He has been actively involved in promotion of deceased donations in India through the NGO called MOHAN. The NGO has won many awards for their pioneering efforts including the British Medical Association South Asia Award in 2015 for establishing ‘Cadaver program in India’ He is the recipient of the best teacher award from his medical university.