Editorial introductions

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Current Opinion in Organ Transplantation was launched in 1996. It is part of a successful series of review journals whose unique format is designed to provide a systematic and critical assessment of the literature as presented in the many primary journals. The field of organ transplantation is divided into 18 sections that are reviewed once a year. Each section is assigned a Section Editor, a leading authority in the area, who identifies the most important topics at that time. Here we are pleased to introduce the Section Editors for this issue. SECTION EDITORS Parsia A. VagefiParsia A. VagefiParsia A. Vagefi, MD, is the Associate Surgical Director of Liver Transplantation and the Surgical Director of Living Donor Liver Transplantation at Massachusetts General Hospital. In addition, Dr Vagefi is an Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. Dr Vagefi graduated with a BA in Biology from Johns Hopkins University, followed by medical school at Yale. During medical school, Dr Vagefi was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Fellow at the Transplantation Biology Research Center with Dr David H. Sachs where he investigated large animal models of allotransplantation and xenotransplantation. Dr Vagefi completed his general surgery residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by an abdominal transplant surgery fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco, where he received the ASTS Novartis Fellowship in Transplantation Award. Dr Vagefi's clinical expertise is in adult and pediatric liver transplantation (including split-liver and living donor liver transplantation) and complex hepatobiliary surgery. Dr Vagefi is a Senior Investigator at the Center for Transplantation Sciences, with a research focus on a pre-clinical model of pig-to-baboon liver xenotransplantation, having now achieved the world's longest survival in pig-to-primate liver xenotransplantation utilizing a novel regimen of co-stimulation blockade combined with coagulation factor infusion. Peter FriendPeter FriendPeter Friend obtained his medical degree (MB BChir) from the University of Cambridge (Magdalene College). He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (Eng) and has a doctoral degree (MD) from the University of Cambridge. After specialist training, he spent a year as Assistant Visiting Professor of Surgery, Indiana University, USA, initiating the Indiana liver transplant programme. In 1989, he returned to the UK as Lecturer in Surgery (Honorary Consultant Surgeon), University of Cambridge; he was also Fellow and Director of Studies in Medicine, Magdalene College, Cambridge. In 1999, he was appointed as Professor of Transplantation, University of Oxford (Honorary Consultant Surgeon); he is also Director of the Oxford Transplant Centre and Fellow of Green Templeton College. Peter Friend's clinical commitments include organ transplantation (kidney, pancreas, intestine) and hepatobiliary surgery. He heads a translational research group focusing on organ perfusion (liver/kidney), novel immunosuppressive strategies and pancreas transplantation. He is author of more than 200 scientific papers on clinical transplantation, immunosuppression, monoclonal antibodies, xenotransplantation, and liver perfusion. He is the Royal College of Surgeons national specialist lead for transplantation research. He is a past-President of the British Transplantation Society. Kathy Lee CoffmanKathy Lee CoffmanDr Kathy Coffman is an attending psychiatrist at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, USA. She attended Wayne State School of Medicine, did an internship in Internal Medicine at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, and a psychiatry residency at the University of Chicago. She also did a two-year fellowship in Consultation Liaison Psychiatry at the University of Michigan. She is board certified in addiction psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine. She has been involved with the field of transplant psychiatry since her residency over the last twenty years. Dr Coffman's research interests include maintaining sobriety in alcoholic liver transplant recipients, HIV, and psychological issues in lung disease. She is a current member of the psychiatry committee for the National Board of Psychiatry and Neurology for development of test questions for the US Medical Licensing Examination. She has been involved in grant review for the National Institutes of Mental Health, and has been a reviewer for Psychomatics and other journals.