Andreas G. Tzakis, M.D., a world-renowned transplant surgeon who has long collaborated with the Diabetes Research Institute faculty, is director of the DRI's Microsurgery Core Facility in the Cell Transplantation Center.
The former director of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine's Pediatric Liver and Intestinal Transplant Programs, Dr. Tzakis joined the University of Miami School of Medicine in 1994 as co-director, with Joshua Miller, M.D., of the Division of Transplantation and as director of the Surgery Department's newly created Division of Liver and Intestinal Transplantation.
While with the University of Pittsburgh's transplant team, Dr. Tzakis performed numerous pioneering surgeries, among them the world's first successful islet transplant from a single pancreas in collaboration with DRI's Camillo Ricordi, M.D., Daniel Mintz, M.D., and Rodolfo Alejandro, M.D.
Dr. Tzakis is considered the leading transplant surgeon in the world, says Dr. Ricordi. He was selected to perform all the most complex cases at the University of Pittsburgh, and is a tremendous asset and a unique faculty scholar at the DRI and the University of Miami.
In addition to being an accomplished liver transplant surgeon, Dr. Tzakis has been a principal contributor to the development of small bowel and multiple-organ transplantation as a viable procedure for both children and adults.
In recent years, he performed history-making baboon-to-human liver transplants at the Pittsburgh Medical Center. In Miami, Dr. Tzakis plans to continue his research on cross-species transplantation.
He is also collaborating with DRI faculty on clinical studies to induce tolerance to organ and cellular transplants without the need for long-term immunosuppressive therapy. Working with Dr. Ricordi, he is transplanting the bone marrow cells of the donor along with the transplanted organs, tissues or cells to create a state of chimerism, or the mixture of donor and recipient cells in the transplant patient's body.
The movement of the donor and recipient cells between the transplanted organ and recipient is considered a key mechanism for acceptance of foreign tissue. He also leads a research effort to introduce new genes into these bone marrow cells that would suppress immune reactivity to these donor cells.
A native of Greece, Dr. Tzakis received his M.D. from the University of Athens, and completed a surgical residency at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York. After completing a surgical residency under Harry Sozoff, M.D., and Felix Rapaport, M.D., professor of surgery and chief of transplantation at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Dr. Tzakis then successfully concluded a two-year transplantation fellowship under Thomas E. Starzl, M.D., Ph.D., at the University of Pittsburgh.
Author or co-author of more than 300 papers, Dr. Tzakis is a member of several professional organizations and has often lobbied Congress and the national organ donor network to place more emphasis on patient need, and less on geographical boundaries in deciding how to allocate life-saving organs.