Dr. Rainer W. G. Gruessner, MD, FACS, FICS, is Professor of Surgery at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University. He formerly served as Chairmen of the Departments of Surgery at the University of Zurich, University of Arizona, and State University of New York. Dr. Gruessner is a nationally renowned surgeon and clinical innovator who has developed new surgical techniques for intestinal, pancreas, and liver transplants. He is prolific academic, a committed educator, and successful mentor to surgical and transplant faculty, residents and fellows. Dr. Gruessner’s academic accomplishments include more than 700 published manuscripts, review articles, book chapters, and published abstracts. Dr. Gruessner has been an invited speaker at over 170 institutions and meetings worldwide. He’s (co-) edited five textbooks: the standard textbooks on Transplantation of the Pancreas, Living Donor Transplantation, and Robotic Surgery and serving as senior editor of a textbook on Transplantation, Bioengineering and Regeneration of the Endocrine Pancreas and a textbook on Technological Advances in Surgery, Trauma and Critical Care. He has served as PI and co-investigator on over 20 research projects and clinical trials, supported by industry, foundations, and the NIH. Dr. Gruessner is a member of over 20 national and international professional societies, has organized many international congresses, is an editorial board member for about 10 journals and has served on many professional and societal committees. In 2019, he received the Richard C. Lillehei award from the International Pancreas and Islet Association (IPITA) for his lifetime achievements in the field of pancreas transplantation. Enrico Benedetti, MD, FACS, Warren H. Cole Chair in Surgery, Professor and Head of the Department of Surgery and Medical Director, Abdominal Organ Transplant Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Enrico Benedetti was born in Perugia, Italy, on Oct. 3, 1960. Dr. Benedetti graduated cum laude from the medical school in the University of Florence in 1985 and completed a surgical residency at the same university by 1989. In 1989, he moved to Chicago to start a United States surgery residency at the University of Illinois at Chicago, which he completed in 1993. Dr. Benedetti earned a fellowship in transplant surgery at the University of Minnesota. Since 1994, Dr. Benedetti has been a transplant surgeon at the University of Illinois. He started as an Assistant Professor of Surgery and rose through the ranks first to Associate Professor in 1999 and then to Professor in 2005. Dr. Benedetti is currently the Head of Department of Surgery and the Director of the Abdominal Organ Transplant Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Benedetti is also the recipient of the Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Humanitarian of the Year Award. Dr. Benedetti has published more than 300 articles and more than 30 book chapters and is the editor of the seminal book, “Living Donor Organ Transplantation. Included among his many surgical accomplishments are: • The first successful combined coronary artery bypass and liver transplant worldwide• The first robotic donor nephrectomy for living donor kidney transplant worldwide in 2000• The first combined living donor liver/bowel transplant from adult to an infant worldwide in 2003 • The first robotic combined kidney/pancreas procurement for living donor kidney/pancreas transplant worldwide in 2005• The largest series worldwide of living donor intestinal transplantation (32 of a total of 47 cases done in the world) • First robotic kidney transplant in obese recipient in 2009
