Tissue-Engineered Vascular Grafts

Beat H. Walpoth, Beat H. Walpoth, M.D., P.D., FAHA, Emeritus, is a trained cardiovascular surgeon and past Director of Cardiovascular Research in the Department of Surgery at Geneva University Hospital, Switzerland. He obtained his medical degree in 1972 from the University of Zurich. Postgraduate training included 2 years at the Peter Bent Brigham, Harvard University, Boston (1973–75), and cardiac transplantation at Stanford University (1982–84). Teaching appointments held at Boston, Zurich, Bern, Geneva, and Verona Universities. Dr. Walpoth is a recipient of several national and international awards, including the ESAO Wichtig Award in 2008 and 2012 for his group’s research on Tissue Engineered Vascular Grafts (TEVG). He has over 200 publications, of which more than 100 are firstauthor papers, in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Walpoth is Past President of the European Society for Artificial Organs (ESAO) as well as the International Symposium on VTE (ISVTE) and has created theTERMIS Thematic Group on TEVG. His current main areas of interest include TEVG, cell therapy, transplantation, angiogenesis, blood flow measurements, as well as bio-artificial cardiovascular support. His future projects are to support the initiated changes from artificial to bio-artificial, i.e., tissue engineered organs, as well as continuing international teaching and networking in the field for better outcome of clinical applications.

Joris Rotmans Joris Rotmans Joris Rotmans is an internist-nephrologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Nephrology of Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) in the Netherlands. He obtained his master’s degree in Medicine (cum laude) from the Free University in Amsterdam. He received his Ph.D. in 2005 from the University of Amsterdam on new therapeutic strategies for vascular access for hemodialysis whereupon he started his residency in Internal Medicine. In 2008–2009, he did postdoctoral research on vascular tissue engineering at the Australian Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Brisbane, Australia. Since 2010, he combines clinical work as internist-nephrologist with vascular and renal research in the Department of Nephrology at LUMC. His main focus of research is vascular access for hemodialysis. He was the principle investigator of the DialysisXS consortium in which a novel method to generate in vivo engineered blood vessels was developed. He is co-founder of VACIS BV, a spin-off company that aims to bring in situ engineered blood vessels to the clinic. In 2014, he received a prestigious VIDI grant from NWO that allowed him to expand his research group and to continue his research on vascular access for hemodialysis. He is the principle investigator of the LIPMAT trial, a multicenter, randomized clinical trial in the Netherlands in which the efficacy of liposomal prednisolone to enhance AVF maturation is evaluated. Dr. Rotmans is Board Memberof the Vascular Access Society and Chair of the Thematic Working Group on Vascular Tissue Engineering of TERMIS.

Peter Zilla’s Peter Zilla is an academic Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeon who is Chief of Adult and Paediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery at Cape Town’s Groote Schuur and Red Cross Children’s Hospitals, Director of the Cardiovascular Research Unit, Co-Director of the Cape Heart Institute, and CEO of Strait Access Technologies at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He holds an M.D. degree from the University of Vienna, a Dr.Med. degree from the University of Zurich, a Ph.D. from the University of Cape Town, and a P.D. (habil) from the University of Vienna. In his capacity as Chief of the Christiaan Barnard Department, where the first human heart transplantation was performed in 1967, he has built up a training program for cardiothoracic surgeons from the African continent.

His main research foci have consistently been in the fields of tissue engineering and prosthetic cardiovascular implants. Pioneering tissue engineering since 1983, he initiated an international multicenter study with in-vitro endothelialisation of peripheral bypass grafts culminating in more than 400 patient-implants. His second focus, improving heart valve prostheses for the young patients of developing countries, has led to tissue treatments that extend the longevity of heart valve prostheses manifold.

His engagement in the field of rheumatic heart disease has additionally awarded him international recognition as a leader in this field when he united all major cardiothoracic surgical societies worldwide under one umbrella (Cardiac Surgery Intersociety Alliance/CSIA), thereby creating a worldwide platform for the establishment of local cardiac surgical capacity in regions of the world that are endemic for RHD but have no access to open heart surgery. Addressing this challenge also from another side, he co-founded a University of CapeTown Start-Up Company in 2008 under the name “Strait Access Technologies” (SAT), securing a leading global position in innovative concepts for trans-catheter heart valve technologies for the patients and resources of lowto middle-income countries.

He is author of almost 200 peer-reviewed full papers and inventor of 41 filed or issued US/PCT patents, having been cited almost 10,000 times with an h-index of 51. He is the editor of 6 books and has authored numerous book chapters. He obtained significant international academic and industry grants and was the recipient of several international awards.