Francis L. Delmonico

Francis L. Delmonico
Born1945 (age 80–81)
Queens, New York
CitizenshipUnited States of America
Alma materGeorge Washington University Virginia Commonwealth University
Known forOrgan Transplant Surgery
AwardsNKF Hume Lifetime Achievement Award

AST Senior Achievement Award in Clinical Transplantation AOPO The President's Award

TTS Medawar Prize
Scientific career
InstitutionsMassachusetts General Hospital New England Donor Services

Francis L. Delmonico (born in New York in 1945) is a retired American surgeon, clinical professor and health expert in the field of transplantation.[1] He served on numerous national and international committees regarding donation and transplant and is affiliated with various leading organizations and institutions. In addition to his work as a transplant surgeon, he served as chief medical officer of the New England Donor Services (NEDS) and Professor of Surgery, Part-Time at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, where he is emeritus director of renal transplantation.[1] He is the author or co-author on over 300 academic papers.[2] He served as president of The Transplantation Society (TTS) from 2012 to 2014, an international non-profit organization based in Montreal, Canada that works with international transplantation physicians and researchers.[1] He also served as the president of the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS) in 2005[3] which overseas the practice of organ donation and transplantation in the United States. He was appointed and still serves as an advisor to the World Health Organization in matters of organ donation and transplantation.[4] He was appointed by Pope Francis to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 2016.[5] In 2020, he became the recipient of the Medawar Prize of The Transplantation Society.[6]

Education

Delmonico received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology at Mount Saint Mary's College in 1966[7] and a Doctor of Medicine degree from George Washington University in 1971.[4] His initial general surgical training was under the direction of pioneer transplant surgeon Dr. David Hume at the Medical College of Virginia.[8] In 1974, Delmonico interrupted his general surgical training to complete a two-year Clinical and Research Fellowship in Transplantation at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He then returned to the Medical College of Virginia to continue his general surgical residency training, which he completed in 1978 as chief resident in surgery.[9]

Career

After serving for two years in the United States Navy as a staff surgeon at Walter Reed Medical Center, an assistant professor of surgery at the Uniformed Services University School of Medicine, and as ship's surgeon on the USS Independence, Delmonico was recruited to the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1980 as a member of the transplantation unit of the department of surgery. He was promoted to visiting surgeon in 1997 and to professor of surgery at the Harvard Medical School in 2000. From 1990 until 2004 he was the director of the Renal Transplantation Service at the Massachusetts General Hospital.[10] Throughout his time at Mass General, he has devoted much of his research efforts to clinical investigation. In the early part of his career, he focused upon the management of recipient immunosuppression and more recently upon the clinical parameters that define the suitable organ donor.

In 1995, Delmonico was appointed medical director of the New England Organ Bank, now New England Donor Services.[1] Under his direction, NEDS has undertaken several research projects, most notably an outcome study of organs transplanted from deceased donors who were bacteremic at the time of their death.[11] This study removed a heretofore absolute contraindication to organ donation, thereby expanding the organ donor pool for selected allograft recipients.[12] Another focus of Delmonico's organ donor interest has been the concept of death.[13] He has been responsible for the development of the Donation after Cardiac Death initiative in transplant centers within the NEDS service area.[14] He was awarded a Department of Health and Human Services Grant as the principal investigator of a project to study the acceptance of kidneys recovered from deceased expanded criteria donors[15] and has served as the medical advisor to the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations.

Delmonico has served on the board of trustees and numerous committees of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) and as its President.[3] UNOS is the contractor for the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network (OPTN), the federally designated organization that oversees the practice of transplantation in the United States.

His contributions to The Transplantation Society (TTS) have been long-standing. As chairman of TTS's ethics committee, he convened an international forum on the live kidney donor in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in April 2004[16], and on the lung, liver, intestine and pancreas donor in Vancouver, Canada, in September 2005[17], with participation of over 100 physicians and surgeons from 44 countries around the world. Furthermore, he served as TTS's director of medical affairs from 2006 to 2010 and president from 2012 to 2014.[18] In 2020, he received the Society's highest distinction in being awarded the Medawar Prize for his lifetime contribution to the field of transplantation.[19]

He works closely with the World Health Organization who made him a WHO consultant on matter of human organ donation and transplantation[20]. In 2008, he was responsible for convening the Istanbul Summit from which the Declaration of Istanbul on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism was derived.[21] He became executive director the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group in 2015.[22]

Writings

He has authored or co-authored more than 300 publications, either as original articles, reviews, commentaries or book chapters. His original writings have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association and The New York Times. He has appeared on numerous television and radio programs, including PBS,[23] Nightline, Good Morning America, CBS Sunday Morning[3] and NPR[24] news. Other educational achievements include his work as associate editor of the American Journal of Transplantation and his reviews for many medical journals such as the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Journal of the American Association of Nephrology, and Surgery. He was a member of the editorial board of Transplantation, Kidney International and Clinical Transplantation.

Awards and recognition

  • 2020: Medawar Prize, The Transplantation Society[19]

Selected publications

References

  1. ^ a b c d Mordowanec, Nick (August 9, 2024). "The Dark Side of Transplant Tourism: Inside the Illegal Organ Black Market". Newsweek. Retrieved January 6, 2026.
  2. ^ "ResearchGate: Search and explore research". ResearchGate. January 8, 2026. Retrieved January 8, 2026.
  3. ^ a b c Alfano, Sean (July 17, 2006). "The Ultimate Gift Found Online". CBS Sunday Morning. Retrieved January 14, 2026.
  4. ^ a b "Championing an End to Organ Trafficking". Medicine + Health Magazine of the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences. 2017-05-18. Retrieved 2026-01-06.
  5. ^ "Francis L. Delmonico". www.pas.va. Retrieved 2026-01-06.
  6. ^ "2020 Medawar Prize". tts.org. Retrieved 2026-01-06.
  7. ^ "Offering A Second Chance" (PDF). Mount Magazine. 2007. p. 20.
  8. ^ Smolski, Anne-Marie. "National Kidney Foundation gives local surgeon its highest award". Wicked Local. Retrieved 2026-02-11.
  9. ^ Byrd, Leha. "International organ donation advocate Francis Delmonico, M.D., to speak at VCU Health". VCU News. Retrieved 2026-01-06.
  10. ^ Stolberg, Sheryl Gay (1999) "Pennsylvania Set to Break Taboo On Reward for Organ Donations", The New York Times, May 6, 1999, retrieved 2011-07-31
  11. ^ Freeman, Richard B.; Giatras, Ioannis; Falagas, Mathew E.; Supran, Stacey; O'Connor, Kevin; Bradley, James; Snydman, David R.; Delmonico, Francis L. (October 1999). "Outcome of Transplantation of Organs Procured from Bacteremic Donors". Transplantation. 68 (8): 1107–1111. doi:10.1097/00007890-199910270-00008. ISSN 0041-1337. PMID 10551637.
  12. ^ Freeman, R. B.; Giatras, I.; Falagas, M. E.; Supran, S.; O'Connor, K.; Bradley, J.; Snydman, D. R.; Delmonico, F. L. (1999-10-27). "Outcome of transplantation of organs procured from bacteremic donors". Transplantation. 68 (8): 1107–1111. doi:10.1097/00007890-199910270-00008. ISSN 0041-1337. PMID 10551637.
  13. ^ Delmonico, F. L. (2010). "The concept of death and deceased organ donation". International Journal of Organ Transplantation Medicine. 1 (1): 15–20. ISSN 2008-6482. PMC 4089217. PMID 25013558.
  14. ^ O'Connor, Kevin; Delmonico, Francis L. (2005). "Donation after cardiac death and the science of organ donation". Clinical Transplants: 229–234. ISSN 0890-9016. PMID 17424742.
  15. ^ Metzger, Robert A.; Delmonico, Francis L.; Feng, Sandy; Port, Friedrich K.; Wynn, James J.; Merion, Robert M. (2003). "Expanded criteria donors for kidney transplantation". American Journal of Transplantation. 3: 114–125. doi:10.1034/j.1600-6143.3.s4.11.x. PMID 12694055.
  16. ^ Delmonico, Francis; Council of the Transplantation Society (2005). "A Report of the Amsterdam Forum On the Care of the Live Kidney Donor: Data and Medical Guidelines". Transplantation. 79 (6 Suppl): S53–66. ISSN 0041-1337. PMID 15785361.
  17. ^ Barr, Mark L.; Belghiti, Jacques; Villamil, Federico G.; Pomfret, Elizabeth A.; Sutherland, David S.; Gruessner, Rainer W.; Langnas, Alan N.; Delmonico, Francis L. (2006). "A Report of the Vancouver Forum on the Care of the Live Organ Donor: Lung, Liver, Pancreas, and Intestine Data and Medical Guidelines". Transplantation. 81 (10): 1373–1385. doi:10.1097/01.tp.0000216825.56841.cd. ISSN 0041-1337.
  18. ^ "Prescence (Globally), Engagement, Partnership" (PDF). The Transplantation Society Tribune. November 2012.
  19. ^ a b "2020 Medawar Prize". tts.org. Retrieved 2026-01-14.
  20. ^ "Editorial introductions". Current Opinion in Organ Transplantation. 23 (1): v–vi. 2018. doi:10.1097/MOT.0000000000000497. ISSN 1087-2418.
  21. ^ United States House of Representatives Biographical Sketch for Francis Delmonico, MD
  22. ^ Pullen, Lara (November 2018). "Ten-Year Celebration of the Declaration of Istanbul". American Journal of Transplantation. 18 (11): 2615–2616. doi:10.1111/ajt.15138. PMID 30372599 – via Elsevier.
  23. ^ affairs, -Dan Sagalyn Dan Sagalyn As the deputy senior producer for foreign; NewsHour, defense at the PBS; oversee, Dan plays a key role in helping; Affairs, Produce the Program’s Foreign; issues, defense stories His pieces have broken new ground on an array of military (2017-05-29). "One doctor's war against global organ trafficking". PBS News. Retrieved 2026-02-11.
  24. ^ N; P; R (2007-11-26). "Doctors Weigh Ethical Question of Organ Sales". NPR. Retrieved 2026-02-11.
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