DUHS to confer honorary degrees on two transplant surgeons

Two leading Pakistani transplant surgeons — Prof Muhammad Mansoor Mohiuddin and Prof Faisal Saud Dar — would be awarded honorary doctor of science (DSc) degrees by the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) Karachi in its annual convocation to be held next week, officials said on Saturday.

“On the recommendations of the syndicate of DUHS, Sindh Governor Kamran Tessori has approved awarding honorary DSc (doctor of science) degrees to two world-famed transplant surgeons including Prof Muhammad Mansoor Mohiuddin, who performed world’s first pig-to-human heart transplant. The other person is world’s leading liver transplant surgeon Prof Faisal Saud Dar who started living-donor liver transplant programs at four leading health facilities in Pakistan, and performed over 1,500 liver transplants in Pakistan alone,” DUHS Vice Chancellor Prof Saeed Quraishy told The News.

He added that Dr Dar, currently heading the Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute (PKLI) in Lahore, was the pioneer of liver transplantation in Pakistan. He holds the credit for performing more than 1,500 transplant procedures in his career, of which over 1,300 were living donor transplants that he performed in Pakistan.

“Prof Faisal Dar received Sitara -e-Imtiaz in 2016 while he was awarded the BMJ South Asia Award 2017 for leading the best surgical team of the year for developing liver transplant service in Pakistan,” Prof Quraishy maintained.

He added that there were around 13 million people infected with viral hepatitis in Pakistan and the incidence of other liver diseases remained unknown. “With such a massive disease burden there was a massive need for liver transplant programmes in Pakistan. Unfortunately, there was no liver transplant facility in our country. A majority of the patients with end stage liver diseases and liver cancer were dying, and the ones who could afford went abroad,” the VC said as he praised Prof Dar for building a sustainable liver transplant programme in the country and training a new generations of transplant surgeons.

Prof Mohiuddin, the second recipient of the honorary degree at the DUHS convocation, successfully transplanted a genetically engineered heart of a pig into a terminally-ill American man, who remained alive for several months but ultimately died due to other complications, Prof Quraishy said.

He maintained that Prof Mohiuddin was the director of the Cardiac Xenotransplantation Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. He previously served as the chief of transplantation at the cardiothoracic surgery research programme at the National Institute of Health (NIH) while holding faculty positions at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and Rush University, Chicago.

He is also an associate editor for a journal related to transplantation and reviews manuscripts for many other journals. He is also the president elect of the Dow Graduate Association of North America.

Prof Mohiuddin received his MBBS (MD) degree from the Dow Medical College, Karachi, and after completing his preliminary surgical training at the Civil Hospital, Karachi, he finished fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania and Institute of Cellular Therapeutics at the Drexel University. He has published over 100 papers, and more than 150 tracts.