Jan Lerut, MD, PhD; Professor Emeritus of Surgery (February 18th, 1951). He graduated from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL-B) and trained in General Surgery at the KUL under the lead of Professor. Jacques A Gruwez, the H Heine University of Dusseldorf-G) under the lead of Professor Karl Kremer and the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL-B) under the lead of Professor Paul Jacques KESTENS. From the start of his surgical career he was very involved in the field of organ transplantation. This interest resulted in a hepatobiliary and transplantation NATO-fellowship at the University Paris-Sud - Centre Hépatobiliaire under the lead of Professor BISMUTH and at the University Pittsburgh Medical Centre under the lead of Professor STARZL. He was director of the abdominal transplant program at the Inselspital University of Bern (CH) from 1987 to 1991. He was ordinary Professor of Surgery and director of the Department of Abdominal and Transplantation Surgery. He was Director of the Starzl Abdominal Transplant Unit of the University Hospitals Saint Luc from 1991 to 2016 and of the UCL Transplant Centre in Brussels from 2006 to 2016. He has served as president of the Belgian Society of Transplantation, the Royal Belgian Society of Surgery, the Eurotransplant Liver Allocation Committee (ELIAC),the European Society for Organ Transplantation (ESOT), the International Liver Transplantation Society (ILTS) and the International Living Donor Liver Transplantation Study Group (iLDLT-SG).He is vice-chair of the UEMS-European Board of Transplantation Surgery (EBTS) and member of the Belgian Superior Health Council. He is member of 22 learning societies related to surgery and transplantation, several councils, scientific committees (e.g. Transmet colorectal metatstases transplantation project, European University Diploma Hepatic, pancreatic and biliary onco-surgical strategies, UEMS-European Board Transplantation Surgery). He serves as reviewer for the major peer-review journals in the field of surgery, transplantation and hepatology and is member of different editorial boards. He leads the Euroliver Foundation and Soroptimist awareness campaigns for adolescents in relation to organ donation and transplantation. He has published over 360 peer-reviewed articles, he authored 26 books chapters and 24 scientific films. He made more than 750 communications on national and international congresses, most of them devoted to liver transplantation. He is honorary member of the French Society for Surgery (AFC),the French Academy for Surgery, the International Society of Surgery (ISS) as well as honorary director of the International Transplantation Center at the Zhejiang International Shulan hospital and the Faculty of Medicine Zhejiang Shuren University in Hangzhou (China). He received the degree of doctor honoris causa at the University of Iasl (Rom) and the ILTS and ELITA distinguished service awards as well as the TTS “Best investigator driven study” and “Mentorship, Education and Training in Transplantation” awards. He has been visiting professor at many renowned institutions. His research interests focus on the development of technical refinements in abdominal wall , abdominal sarcoma and liver transplantation surgery , transplantation oncology, vascular liver diseases and on the use of minimal immunosuppression and tolerance induction in liver transplantation. His H-index is 47; total number of citations 9949. September 30, 2016, he ended his active academic career and became professor emeritus and scientific collaborator of the Institute for Clinical and Experimental Research (IREC) of the Université catholique Louvain (UCL). During both his surgical training and career, he got acquainted with five different linguistic and cultural European environments (Dutch, German, English, French, Polish speaking). This situation together with his longstanding interest for and exposure to Asian medicine and surgery’ (in particular Japan, Taiwan, South-Korea and China), allowed him to get a unique insight in the today’s surgical world. A worldwide network, build-up during the recent decade, resulted in several important scientific collaborative global efforts joining western and eastern experiences. This collaboration resulted in several highly rated publications in the field of hepatobiliary cancer and transplantation. Besides his multiple scientific activities, he remains very engaged to bring transplantation medicine and surgery to the larger public.