Mass General Transplant Innovator Awarded the Medawar Prize

Francis Delmonico, MD, a pioneer in the field of transplantation, has been awarded a prestigious scientific honor—the Medawar Prize. A foremost award from The Transplantation Society (TTS), an organization for which Dr. Delmonico served as president from 2012-2014, the Medawar Prize recognizes the recipient’s outstanding lifetime contributions in transplantation and their influence on the field. He was presented with the award during the TTS 2020 Virtual Congress in September 2020.

Dr. Delmonico, emeritus director of Renal Transplantation at the Massachusetts General Hospital Transplant Center, has many distinctions throughout his long career. In 2005, Dr. Delmonico was elected president of the United Network of Organ Sharing/Organ Procurement Transplant Network (UNOS/OPTN) after two decades of UNOS committee leadership. As the director of medical affairs of TTS, Dr. Delmonico convened transplant professionals, legal scholars and ethicists to draft the ground-breaking Declaration of Istanbul (DOI) in 2008. This international policy document defined organ trafficking and transplant tourism, called for the equitable distribution of deceased donor organs and for the safety of transplant recipients and the wellbeing of living donors. Dr. Delmonico also collaborated with the World Health Organization (WHO) to develop WHO guiding principles of practice, subsequently adopted by the World Health Assembly.

Dr. Delmonico served as chief medical officer of New England Donor Services, formerly New England Organ Bank (NEOB), for 25 years. His local and national leadership has been profound in establishing the medical suitability of organs derived from deceased donors. In 2000, Dr. Delmonico initiated the first regional program of paired kidney donation in the United States under the auspices of the NEOB.

In 2016, Dr. Delmonico was appointed by Pope Francis to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences following his nomination by Nobel Laureate Joseph Murray.