Shaf Keshavjee is a Canadian surgeon and the current Surgeon-in-Chief at University Health Network in Toronto, the Director of the Toronto Lung Transplant Program, as well as a clinical scientist and professor with the University of Toronto.
His clinical practice in Thoracic Surgery and Transplant Surgery is based at the Toronto General Hospital, where he also leads a research team in lung transplantation studies. Dr. Keshavjee gained international recognition for the development of his lung preservation solution for donor lungs en route to transplantation; this solution is now the standard technique utilized by transplantation programs around the world. Further, he broke new ground with his research to the recondition and repair of injured human donor lungs, making them suitable for patient transplantation, using the Toronto XVIVO Lung Perfusion System. His work has allowed for an increase in the number of available donor lungs.
Education and training
In 1985, Keshavjee completed his medical degree at the University of Toronto. He did a comprehensive surgical internship at the Mount Sinai Hospital in 1986. His Research Fellowship and Surgical Scientist Program in the Division of Thoracic Surgery were done at the University of Toronto and Toronto General Hospital in 1989. That same year he received his MSc in the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Toronto.
A few years later in 1993, Keshavjee became a Fellow in Thoracic Surgery at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York City. In 2012, he went to Harvard University, Harvard Kennedy School, and Cambridge University to obtain a degree in continuing education for Leadership for the 21st Century: Chaos, Conflict and Courage. In 1994, he joined the faculty at the University of Toronto.
Current appointments
1994–Present: Director of Thoracic Surgery Research Laboratory, Toronto General Research Institute (TGRI) and University of Toronto (U of T) 1995–Present: Faculty in the Institute of Medical Sciences, School of Graduate Studies at the University of Toronto 1997–Present: Senior Scientist, Division of Experimental Therapeutics, UHN, TGRI 1997–Present: Director, Toronto Lung Transplant Program, Toronto General Hospital (TGH) and The Hospital for Sick Children 2002–Present: Professor of Surgery, Department of Surgery, U of T 2010–Present: Surgeon-in-Chief, Sprott Department of Surgery, UHN 2012–Present: Adjunct Scientist, Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute
Awards and recognition
Boards and societies
Dr. Keshavjee has served on the board of directors of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation, the Canadian Society of Transplantation, and on the Governing Council of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery.
Awards
Over the course of his career, he has received many awards for his medical contributions. These have included: The George Armstrong Peters Young Investigator Award Canada's Top 40 Under 40 Award The Colin Woolf Award for Excellence in Continuing Medical Education The Lister Prize in Surgery
The Lister Prize in Surgery is the highest award for research achievement that one can obtain within the University of Toronto's Department of Surgery.
On February 6, 2013, Dr. Keshavjee was inducted into the Order of Ontario. He has also received two Queen's Jubilee medals in recognition for his work.
On December 26, 2014, Dr. Keshavjee was made an officer of the Order of Canada.
TED MED
At TED MED 2010, Dr. Keshavjee gave a talk entitled ‘Can a human lung breathe outside the body in which he addressed the process of repairing organs outside the human body.
Achievements
At his Thoracic Surgery Research Laboratory, Dr. Kehavjee's research interests include lung transplantation, lung injury, and lung preservation. His current studies examine molecular diagnostics and gene therapy strategies for engineering organs for lung transplantation. The Lab's work explores the underlying mechanisms of ischemia-reperfusion injury and bronchiolitis obliterans – two areas that limit successful lung transplantation – and develops gene therapy strategies for either preventing or reversing them. Several areas within ischemia-reperfusion injury are examined, including the role of complement and cytokine-related lung injury and its relation to reperfusion. The work is done on cell culture models, rat single lung transplant models, and pig single lung transplant models.