Lars Erik Gelin award

Lars-Erik Gelin (1920-1980) was the first Professor of Transplantation Surgery in Sweden. He performed the first kidney transplantation in Gothenburg in 1965. In 1979, the Transplantation Unit in Gothenburg has become the fourth in the world to transplant 1000 kidneys. Besides his pioneering contributions to clinical transplantation, Professor Gelin was a brilliant experimentalist and a gifted educator who inspired many generations of future surgeons. Professor Gelin’s legacy lives on through the largest Transplantation program in Northern Europe.

In early 2018, a group of educators and researchers at the Scandinavian Microsurgery Academy  together with Gelin family to instigate a Lars-Erik Gelin award.The award will be given to persons who have made a long lasting contribution to experimental and clinical transplantation and distinguished mentorship in experimental microsurgery.

During the 14th ISEM Congress in Debrecen, Hungary, the Scandinavian Microsurgery Academy bestowed the inaugural Lars-Erik Gelin Award. The 2018 awardee is Eiji Kobayashi, M.D., Ph.D., (Keio University, Tokyo, Japan)

The recipient of the second Lars-Erik Gelin Award, Professor Gabriel Gondolesi (Buenos Aires, Argentina) has recently visited Gothenburg. The COVID-19 pandemic put the initial visit plans in 2020 on hold, and the award ceremony was ultimately held online. The recent visit was related to the aniversary symposium “Twenty-five years of intestinal transplantation at Sahlgrenska University Hospital”, where Professor Gondolesi represented the Intestinal Rehabilitation and Transplant Association, but  Dr. Gondolesi found time to visit the laboratory of microsurgical training and meet with several members of the Scandinavian Microsurgery Academy.