Dr. Fadi Lakkis is Distinguished Professor of Surgery and Professor of Immunology and Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. He received his medical degree from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, and his fellowship training in Nephrology and Transplantation Immunology at the Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School. After serving on the faculty of Emory University (1992 – 2001) and Yale University (2001 – 2005), Dr. Lakkis joined the University of Pittsburgh in 2005 as the Frank and Athena Sarris Chair in Transplantation Biology and the Scientific Director of the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute. Funded by the NIH, work in Dr. Lakkis’s laboratory is focused on two fundamental areas of transplantation immunology: (1) allorecognition in the innate immune system, using both invertebrate and vertebrate models of transplantation; and (2) the biology of memory T cells in organ transplantation in experimental animals and humans. Dr. Lakkis has received several awards in recognition of his research. He was the recipient of the Young Investigator Award of the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) in 2002 and the American Society of Transplantation Basic Science Established Investigator Award in 2009. He is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (2002) and the American Association of Physicians (2008). Dr. Lakkis has also served on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Transplantation.