Partial Heart Transplant: What's All the Fuss About?

Joseph Turek

Panelist

Joseph Turek, MD, PhD, MBA is an academic pediatric cardiac surgeon. Since 2017, he has served as chief of pediatric cardiac surgery and executive co-director of Duke Children’s Pediatric & Congenital Heart Center. Prior to Duke, he held a similar leadership role at the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital from 2012-2017.

Dr. Turek graduated from Northwestern University (biochemistry) and received his MD/PhD (pharmacology) from the University of Illinois (Chicago) with AOA distinction. He completed general surgery education at Duke University, where he also finished a cardiothoracic surgery residency. Dr. Turek completed a congenital cardiac surgery fellowship at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He received an MBA with Health Sector Management concentration from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business.

Dr. Turek is a surgical innovator, developing novel operations and introducing new products to patients with congenital heart disease. Most notably, he performed the world’s first co-transplant of a heart and cultured thymus tissue, in an operation that could usher in an era of organ transplant tolerance. In another highly innovative operation, he performed the world’s first partial heart transplant for a newborn without functioning aortic or pulmonary valves, maintaining growth capacity of the newly implanted valves. Additionally, he led the team at Duke in completing the nation’s first pediatric donation after circulatory death heart transplant with ex vivo reanimation and then did the same with in situ reanimation and transport, as a means to expand the already limited donor pool of available organs. His clinical passion and expertise lies in high complexity neonatal heart surgery.

Dr. Turek has published over 150 peer-reviewed manuscripts. He maintains a well-funded research laboratory with projects spanning from basic science to translational to clinical research, in areas such as heart transplantation tolerance, living root transplantation, and Marfan syndrome.

David Kalfa

Panelist

David Kalfa, MD, PhD, is a Associate Professor of Surgery, in the Section of Pediatric & Congenital Cardiac Surgery at Columbia University Medical Center and Site Director, Pediatric cardiac Surgery, Weill-Cornell Medical Center. He is the Director of the Pediatric Heart Valve Center at Columbia and Surgical Director of the Initiative for Pediatric Cardiac Innovation at Columbia University. He is a NIH and AHA-funded surgeon scientist and an Irving Scholar at Columbia University. His clinical interests center around neonatal cardiac surgery, congenital valve repair, biventricular intracardiac reconstruction and minimally invasive surgery. Dr Kalfa also leads  international research programs, focusing on development of innovative medical devices, tissue and mechanical engineering, computational modeling studies and precision medicine. Dr Kalfa's clinical and research expertise has been recognized and honored by many awards and grants. He is a AATS, STS, CHSS, EACTS, AHA member and a NIH reviewer.

Taufiek Konrad Rajab

Panelist

Taufiek Konrad Rajab is attending cardiac surgeon at Arkansas Children's Hospital and holds an academic appointment as assistant professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Science. His clinical interests encompass the full spectrum of congenital cardiac surgery. His research focuses on partial heart transplantation, and is funded by the AATS, the Arkansas Children's Research Institute, the Brett Boyer Foundation, and the NIH.

Magdi Yacoub

Panelist

Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub is Emeritus Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, Director of Research at the Magdi Yacoub Institute at Harefield Heart Science Centre, President of the Chain of Hope and Director of the Magdi Yacoub Heart Foundation which created the Aswan Heart Centre.

Research led by Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub include tissue engineering heart valves, myocardial regeneration, novel left ventricular assist devices and wireless sensors with collaborations within Imperial College, nationally and internationally.

He has a passion for readdressing inequalities in global healthcare delivery with a focus on developing cardiac services in many countries including Egypt, The Gulf region, Jamaica, Ethiopia, Mozambique Rwanda and Uganda.  Here his teams at Chain of Hope link experts together around the world to bring life-saving treatments to children in developing and war-torn countries.  Continuing his desire to make healthcare accessible to all, his Centre in Aswan, offers state-of-the art medical services, free of charge to all patients regardless of colour, religion, or gender and trains a generation of young Egyptian doctors, nurses, scientists, and technicians at the highest international standards.

Among his honours he was awarded Knighthood for his services to medicine and surgery in 1992 and awarded the Order of Merit by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in the 2014 New Year’s Honours list. He was awarded Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1998 and Fellowship of The Royal Society in 1999.  In 2011 he was awarded the Order of the Nile for Science and Humanity and the prestigious Lister Medal in 2015 in recognition of his contribution to surgical science and in 2022 he became honorary Chancellor of the British University in Egypt (BUE)

Alexandra Glazier

Panelist

Alex is President & CEO of New England Donor Services, the nonprofit Organ Procurement Organization responsible for coordinating organ donation for transplantation in a six state region. NEDS serves over 200 hospitals, 14 transplant centers and a population of 14 million people. Since Alex stepped into the Executive role in 2015, the number of organs transplanted from donors in the region has increased by 84%. In 2021 NEDS successfully completed the first OPO merger in decades. NEDS has been named as a top 100 Female Led Business by the Boston Globe and the Commonwealth Institute for 5 years in a row (2018-2022).

Alex is a recognized thought leader on transplant policy, law and ethics having held numerous leadership positions including Chair of the OPTN Ethics Committee, Chair of the OPTN Policy Oversight Committee, and two appointments to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Advisory Committee on Organ Transplantation. Alex serves on several Boards including Donate Life America and worked on the venture with Apple to enable donor registration through the iPhone.

Alex is an assistant professor at Brown University where she teaches courses in health law and public health leadership. Previously, Alex practiced law at the firm Ropes & Gray. Alex holds an undergraduate degree in bioethics from Brown University and a JD-MPH magna cum laude from Boston University.