Gavin Kirk graduated from Wits Medical School in 1982. After a variety of hospital posts and a period in general practice in Durban, he embarked on a new direction by specialising in forensic pathology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He has a special interest in sudden deaths during sport but given the South African situation deals predominantly with cases of violent deaths from homicides and our roads.

After working as a specialist forensic pathologist in Durban for several years he transferred to Cape Town in 2008 and joined the Forensic Pathology Service of the Western Cape and the Division of Forensic Pathology & Toxicology at UCT. He is currently the Clinical Unit Head in the FPS West Metropole. Outside of work Gavin is a keen amateur photographer and traveller, now an armchair sports fan (having many years ago been a cricket umpire at first-class level) and loves listening to classical music while dreaming of an unfulfilled fantasy of conducting a symphony orchestra!

Robert Kleinloog qualified form the Potchefstroom and Pretoria Universities and registered as a Cardiothoracic Surgeon in 1990 after admission to the College of Medicine of SA with a Fellowship in Cardiothoracic Surgery.

He remained a consultant CT surgeon with the University of KZN Medical School while in full time private ptactice in Durban. He established the Transplant Unit in 1996 and remains the head if the unit currently at the Ethekwini Heart Hospital where he continues to practice. He is the  immediate past president of the Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons of SA, past president of the World Society of Cardiovascular Surgeons, Secretary of the SA Heart Association and American Association of Thoracic Surgeons.

Professor Alain Assounga is Head of the Nephrology at Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal and Chief Specialist at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital in Durban.

Professor Assounga received his medical training in Brazzaville, and his nephrology and immunology training in France and the US. He lectured and practised medicine in the Congo and Botswana before moving to Durban, South Africa, where he teaches nephrology. His research interests are focused on immunology, clinical nephrology, haemodialysis and transplantation, for which he has published several papers.

Professor Assounga has authored and co-authored peer-reviewed manuscripts and abstracts, and has several editorial positions on academic journals. He is the Editor in Chief of The African Journal of Nephrology.

Dr Freercks is a nephrologist and head of the Renal Unit at Livingstone Hospital in the Eastern Cape (EC) province of South Africa.  The Livingstone Renal Unit is a large tertiary nephrology training centre and has significantly increased kidney transplantation access in the EC.  Dr Freercks oversees the transplant clinic in Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) and his research interests include transplantation advocacy, pharmacogenomics in transplantation and the interaction between infectious diseases and CKD.  His experience in caring for kidney transplant recipients in a resource-constrained environment has driven his passion for improving long term outcomes for these patients.

Professor Davidson is the head of the Paediatric Haematology-Oncology Service at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital and the University of Cape Town.

His clinical and research interests include paediatric brain tumours, HIV-related cancers, genetic predisposition syndromes, stem cell transplantation for primary immunodeficiency and adapted therapy regimens for low- and middle-income settings. He was a founder member of the South African Stem Cell Transplantation Society. He co-chairs the South African Paediatric Brain Tumour Workshop and serves as the President of the Society for NeuroOncology’s sub-Saharan Africa branch. He has served the International Society of Paediatric Oncology as a Global Health Network co-chair and as the chair of the Advocacy Committee and is now the Treasurer serving on the Board of Directors.

As a professor in the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Cape Town, he served for more than a decade as the director of post-graduate education. He has been a member of the Paediatric Council of the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa since 2008 and its president since 2017. He chairs the Finance and General Purposes Committee and serves on the Board of Directors. He is a member of the board of the Children’s Hospital Trust, as well as the board of RedX Radio.

Lindo Radebe is a Paediatric Gastroenterologist at Red Cross War Memorial Children`s
Hospital, Cape Town and completed her Paediatric Gastroenterology training at Tygerberg
Hospital.

Her area of expertise includes gastrointestinal diseases, liver diseases and conditions
related to nutrition. She has a special interest in liver transplantation, inborn errors of
metabolism, hepatology, and inflammatory bowel disease.

Professor Rafique Moosa is an Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Stellenbosch University. Previously,
Head of the Department of Medicine at Stellenbosch University, Past-President of the Southern
African Transplant Society, Past- President of the South African Renal Society, Member International
Society of Nephrology and he has also served on some its sub-structures.

Professor Moosa is a past executive committee member of the College of Physicians of the Colleges
of Medicine of the South Africa; member of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Organ
Transplantation (MACoT), since 2014 and Chairperson of the MACoT since 2020.
Currently in private practice in Rondebosch, Cape Town. Main interests are in equity in the health
services provision and ethical issues in kidney replacement treatment.

Professor Gottlich is a University of Witwatersrand graduate and a specialist paediatric nephrologist. He has been in practice at the Morningside Mediclinic and University of Witwatersrand Donald Gordon Medical Centre since 2006. He is an honorary professor in the paediatric nephrology department at the University of Pretoria where he is involved in the training of paediatric registrars and paediatric nephrology fellows. Professor Gottlich also manages the KidneyCare programme at Discovery Health which focuses on processes to improve the quality of care and quality of life of Discovery members with chronic kidney disease.

Mbali Misimeki is a SACSSP registered social work practitioner, experienced in the provision of comprehensive social work services at a micro, mezzo, and macro levels of intervention within the public and private sector.

Mbaili’s field experience includes statutory work, generalist social work practice, academic social work tutoring, school intervention, occupational social work, social work supervision, and medical/health social work; with special interest in transplantation, palliation, psychosocial wellbeing, and disease management.
Furthermore, she is a South African One Young World ambassador, a Young African Leaders Initiative Network member, and a published author. Mbali is an advocate for social change, development, and social cohesion.

Associate Professor Greg Calligao is a senior specialist in the Division of Pulmonology at Groote Schuur Hospital (GSH), and a research co-ordinator at the Centre for Lung Infection and Immunity of the University of Cape Town Lung Institute. He completed a Fellowship in thoracic transplantation at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney in 2016, has helped to establish an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) service at GSH and is the medical lead of the heart and lung transplant service. He currently is serving as the Chair of the Heart and Lung Committee of The Transplantation Society and is an Executive Committee member of the South African Thoracic Society. His clinical work focuses on interstitial lung diseases, lung transplantation, cystic fibrosis, and pulmonary vascular disease.

Professor McGiffin is presently the Senior Cardiothoracic Surgeon, Department of Cardiothoracic
Surgery and Transplantation, The Alfred Hospital, (now retired from clinical practice) and Professor
of cardiothoracic surgery, Monash University, Melbourne Australia and Honorary Professor, School
of Medicine, University of Queensland, Brisbane Australia.

Professor McGiffin spent most of his career at the University of Alabama at Birmingham where his
major focus was thoracic transplantation, mechanical circulatory support, and pulmonary
endarterectomy. He returned to Australia in 2013 as head of the department of cardiothoracic
surgery and transplantation at the Alfred and Professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Monash
University, Melbourne from 2013 to 2021. His clinical activities were adult cardiac surgery,
pulmonary endarterectomy, adult heart transplantation, mechanical circulatory support, adult, and
pediatric lung transplantation. He established a pulmonary endarterectomy programme for chronic
thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension at the Alfred which is now the major referral programme
for Australia and New Zealand.

Since 2013 his major research interest has been in donor heart machine perfusion, the goal being to
extend the ischemic time of donor hearts from the current approximately 4 hours out to 8 hours by
hypothermic oxygenated machine perfusion (HOPE). Four years of experimental work have
underpinned the Australian/New Zealand Trial of Extended Donor Heart Ischemic Time, of which he
is the co-Principal Investigator. The use of HOPE in the trial has been transformative – there is no
donor heart anywhere in Australia or New Zealand that cannot be transported to a transplant centre
in either country. Another area of his research interests is investigating the pathology of ventricular
assist device driveline infection.

Dr Martin Sussman qualified at the University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg South Africa in 1982, (Cardiothoracic Surgery) 1990, South African College of Medicine Clinical Fellow Cleveland Clinic Foundation 1992/3 . Michael and Janie Miller Foundation Fellowship in Surgery, New York University 1997 and Consultant, Johannesburg Hospital until 1999.

He is currently a Consultant Surgeon in private practice at Milpark Hospital Johannesburg South Africa.

Dr Sussman is a member of the South African Heart Association, Past-President (2010/2011), South African Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons, The South African Medical Association, South African Thoracic Society and the American College of Cardiology.

Anja Meyer is a well-presented, articulate professional with strong communication and engagement skills and a definite dedication to her profession. She is the current chairperson of the South African Transplant Co-ordinators Society and EXCO member of SATS whereby her objective is to strengthen the unity in transplant coordinators, nurses, and allied members. She has co-author papers in international peer-reviewed publications on CMV in paediatric liver transplantation as well as Prognostic indicators in paediatric acute liver failure in South Africa. She was the main author and designer of a 1000 information red files which were distributed to public and private sector ED and ICU units. She is a people’s person who is passionate about transplants and lives by the principle: Ubuntu- “I am, because of you.” She loves the outdoors, fishing and watching marvel movies.

Dr Beretta completed her undergraduate studies at Wits University. During her community service assignment to paediatric surgery, she discovered her passion of working with children. She conducted her specialty and completed her MMED through Wits University and was then presented with the opportunity of sub-specialising through Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre. She completed her training in 2018 and is currently heading up the Paediatric Liver Transplant Unit at Wits Donald Gordon, the largest paediatric liver transplant unit in South Africa.

Her aspirations are to improve awareness and access to liver transplantation in South Africa, raise awareness of cholestatic liver disease and acute liver failure and act as an ambassador for South Africa in the international paediatric liver transplant community. Her efforts to represent the South Africa experience include engaging in multiple international studies including the Global Alagille Alliance, Severe Hepatitis in Paediatric Patients (SHIPP) and the Portal vein Obstruction Revascularisation Therapy After Liver transplantation (PORTAL) studies. Her hope is to highlight South African paediatric liver transplant patients as an important demographic that merits increased awareness and consideration in the global arena.

Dr Zunaid Barday qualified (MBChB) at the University of Cape Town in 1993. He trained as a physician and then a nephrologist at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, where he continues to work. He runs the Renal Transplant Clinic and is involved in all aspects of living kidney donor assessment and post-transplant care of kidney transplant recipients. More recently he has been involved starting the first ABO incompatible kidney transplant programme in South Africa. He also looks after renal failure patients at the UCT and Athlone Kidney and Dialysis Centres. Research interests include desensitisation and immunosuppression protocols as well as HIV positive kidney transplantation.

Mande Toubkin  presently is the General Manager Emergency, Trauma, Transplant, Disaster management and CSI Netcare, Company Netcare Healthcare Holdings PTY Ltd (Netcare).

Mandy completed her Dip General Nursing, Dip Midwifery (Honours), Dip Paediatric Nursing Science (Honours), Trauma Nursing (Honours), Hospital Nursing Management, Aviation Health Care Providers, FSA Interaction Management, Dip Medical and Surgical Nursing Trauma (Honours), Dip Medical and Surgical Nursing Critical Care (Honours), MSC(Masters) in Emergency Medicine.

Mande is the recipient of the Forum for Professional Nurse Leaders (FPNL) Leadership Excellence Award for outstanding contribution to leadership within the nursing profession in South Africa. Certificate of completion, Stanford University applied Compassion Training (ACT2022), Certified Jungian Coach (ACSTH – ICF Approved Coach Specific Training Hours)(JCSSA 2023). Fellowships awarded by Emergency Medicine Society fEMSSA, Fellowship from The Academy of Nursing. fANSA Director Emergency Medicine Society of South Africa, Director Netcare Foundation.  Founding Member of the Centre for Compassion, Transformational Leadership and Safety in Health Care.

Associate Professor Nicola Wearne is Head of the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at the Groote Schuur Hospital and University of Cape Town, South Africa. She is currently the secretary of the South African Nephrology Society, a member of the African Nephrology Society executive committee (Chair of the teaching and education committee as well as and President of Women in Nephrology -Africa.

She is head of both the HIV kidney service and peritoneal dialysis service in the division. She is currently completing her PhD which is related to HIV and kidney disease. She has published widely in this area. Nicci has a strong passion for kidney supportive and palliative care programmes in South Africa and was involved in the production of guidelines on this topic for South Africa.

She is actively involved with the International Society of Nephrology and is responsible for managing the fellowship programme in the division.

Dr Priya Walabh Is the clinical head of paediatric gastroenterology/hepatology at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, since establishing the unit in 2015. She completed her speciality and subspeciality training at Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town in 2011. Her passion is paediatric liver transplantation, with her primary focus being to address disparities in transplantation and organ allocation and the impact of social determinants of health thus aiming to make the “gift of life” equally accessible to all South Africans. She also has a special interest in infectious diseases associated with liver transplantation and is a committee member of the Special Interest Group (SIG): Infectious disease and transplantation in the International Liver Transplant Society (ILTS).

Dr Walabh ‘s present role, as the co-lead in the SATS liver working group is her current focus, especially with a view to establishing a consensus regarding a workable liver transplantation allocation system in South Africa. She also belongs to IPTA and is a member of the IPTA outreach committee. She has published in international peer-reviewed journals and as first author on CMV in Paediatric liver transplantation in S.A and Prognostic markers in paediatric acute liver failure in S.A.

Hot yoga, swimming, travelling and tarot cards are her mind-body detox methods especially during the chaotic planetary retrogrades and eclipse seasons.

Professor De Ville De Goyet is Head of the Pediatric Department Abdominal Surgery and Transplantation at ISMETT – UPMC hospital in Palermo (Sicily). He graduated from the Catholic University of Louvain (Brussels, Belgium) in 1980 and trained in surgery, pediatric surgery and liver transplantation at the Cliniques St Luc (Brussels, Belgium). Clinical Consultant posts were successively at Brussels paediatric liver transplantation center (1988-1998), and at Birmingham Children’s Hospital (1998- 2003). Professor of paediatric surgery since 2003, he then held the post of liver transplantation programme director at the Cliniques St Luc Brussels (Head of Abdominal Surgery and Transplantation Department / 2003-2007), and at the Bambino Gesu Children’s Hospital Rome (Head of Surgery and Transplantation Department / 2007-2016).

He is currently head of the Pediatric Department Abdominal Surgery and Transplantation at ISMETT – UPMC hospital in Palermo (Sicily) since 2016. He is associate editor at the Journal “Pediatric Transplantation”. His other interests and research topics are in the field of liver transplantation and surgery, extrahepatic portal hypertension and portal system malformations.

Professor Graham Paget is currently the Head of the Renal Division at Charlotte Maxeke, Johannesburg Academic Hospital. His research interests include viral infections in renal disease and he is currently undertaking his PhD in these potential aspects of idiopathic nephrotic syndrome. He was the President of the South African Renal Society from 2016 to 2020, and was the Academic Head of Nephrology at the University of the Witwatersrand from 2013 to 2019. He is actively involved in postgraduate degree supervision and marking, and has convened and examined for the Certificate in Nephrology subspecialty exams for the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa. He has mentored many Fellows in Nephrology, including the International Society of Nephrology sponsored candidates from our African neighbours. He is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in the UK. He has been involved in around 25 publications in peer-reviewed journals and has co-authored a book chapter on HIV and renal disease. He has been a serving member of the Department of Health ministerial advisory committee on transplantation for several years.

Dr. van der Schyff obtained her specialist qualification as a general surgeon in 2016, at the University of Pretoria, cum laude. She underwent additional training in Paediatric surgery for 2 years before accepting a training post in abdominal transplant surgery at the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Center.

She has since qualified as an abdominal transplant surgeon is currently on the permanent staff complement at the Transplant Unit in Johannesburg and has taken a leading role in the renal transplant unit. Dr van der Schyff has previously published on biliary atresia and necrotizing enterocolitis in children and her current field of research include graft tolerance in children post liver transplant. She is currently serving as an examiner and preparatory course organiser for the ESOT Transplant Surgery examination board and is a member of the Vanguard committee. She served at the 2022 SATS Biennial Congress organising chair and has been elected President elect for the SATS executive committee.

Dr Peter Nourse is presently with the Division of Paediatric Nephrology, Red Cross War Memorial
Children’s Hospital, School of Child and Adolescent Health, University of Cape Town.

Dr Nourse is a Paediatric Nephrologist working at a busy children’s nephrology centre in Cape Town,
South Africa which has an active transplant programme. He qualified in Cape Town and completed
his Fellowship in Paediatric Nephrology in the Netherlands. He was instrumental in developing the
current Allocation database used in the Western and Eastern Cape. He continues to develop and
maintain the database together with colleagues from Grote Schuur Hospital. He serves on
international and local committees as well as editorial boards and is widely published.

Brenda Morrow is a Physiotherapist and Full Professor in the Department of Paediatrics, University
of Cape Town, South Africa. Brenda is an active clinician-scientist with a special interests in
interdisciplinary paediatric critical care practice and research; cardiopulmonary rehabilitation;
palliative care; and medical ethics. Brenda has over 120 peer-reviewed publications; 13 book
chapters; numerous national and international congress presentations and holds a Southern African
National Research Foundation (NRF) B rating. She is currently President of the World Federation of
Paediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies (WFPICCS) and President-Elect of the Critical Care
Society of Southern Africa. Brenda is Editor-in-Chief of the Southern African Journal of Critical Care;
Senior Associate Editor for Pediatric Critical Care Medicine and Associate Academic Editor of PlosOne
and Frontiers in Pediatrics (Critical Care). She is a regular reviewer for over 40 international journals
and grant funding agencies.

Professor Timothy Pennel is the Head of Division and Chris Barnard Chair of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Cape Town.  His niche area of expertise focuses on heart and lung failure as well endothelial tissue engineering.  Tim simultaneously completed his Master’s degree (MMED) and PhD on synthetic vascular graft optimisation, before obtaining his Fellowship in Cardiothoracic Surgery.  His laboratory research focuses on the mechanism of vascular graft healing in high-porosity conduits, electrospun degradable polymers and decellularized xenografts.  Tim serves as an executive member of the International Society for Cardiovascular Biology (ISACB) and International Symposium on Vascular Tissue Engineering (ISVTE) and the board of SA Heart.  In 2017, Tim established the first lung transplant programme Africa for public sector patients and oversees thoracic transplantation at Groote Schuur and Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital. His vision is to re-establish University Hospitals as centres of excellence for quaternary based care whilst training emerging Cardiothoracic surgeons as clinicians and researchers.

Professor Melodie Labuschaigne is Professor in Medical law and Ethics in the Department of
Jurisprudence in the School of Law, University of South Africa. She is a former Director of the
School of Law and Deputy Executive Dean of the College of Law at UNISA. She obtained the
degrees BA, BA (Hons), MA and DLitt from the University of Pretoria, and the degrees LLB and
LLD (in medical law) from the University of South Africa.

During 2000-2002, she lectured medical law and ethics at Adelaide University in South Australia.
She has published numerous articles on a range of medico-legal topics in local and international
journals and has presented many local and international conference papers. She is a recipient of
the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research from the University of South Africa, the
Women in Research Leadership Award, and the Hugo de Groot Prize.

Professor Labuschaigne has been involved with the revision and drafting of health legislation for many years and is regularly approached to provide legal opinions on legal issues relating to medical law. During 2016-2018 she served on the Academy of Sciences of South Africa consensus panel on Human genetics and genomics in South Africa: Ethical, legal and social implications, and has been invited to serve on the ASSAf consensus study on gene editing in 2019. She has also served on the Bioethics Advisory Panel advising the President of the SAMRC and is currently a legal member of the National Health Research Ethics Council and Ampath’s Medico-legal and Ethics Committee.