Professor of Surgery & Transplantation
University of Zurich

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Professor Pierre A. Clavien, a world-renowned surgeon-scientist, is currently professor of Surgery and Transplantation, University of Zurich and Co-Director of the “Liver4Life” group at the Wyss Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. After a Swiss board of surgery in 1989, he moved to Toronto, Canada, to complete a PhD program in organ preservation, followed by a clinical fellowship in HPB surgery and liver transplantation. He then moved to Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, where he initially led the liver transplantation and HPB programs, and subsequently the division of transplantation, and obtained the rank of full Professor within 4 years.

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The main interest of Professor Clavien has been in several aspects of transplantation and liver surgery. Since 1994, he has run an active basic science laboratory funded through NIH and Swiss National Science Foundation Grants and other private and non-private sources. His areas of research include organ preservation, liver ischemia-reperfusion injury and liver regeneration, and pathogenesis of cancer, as well as outcome research with publication in Science, Nature, PNAS and NEJM. His laboratory made the discovery of serotonin as a key mediator of liver regeneration and pathogenesis of cancer (Science 2006).

Professor Clavien has also developed a simple and widely used system to evaluate complications after surgery, which holds his name. The impact of his research might be highlighted with an H-factor of 144. He has been president of the European Surgical Association (ESA), European Hepatobiliary Association (E-AHPBA) and the Swiss Transplantation Society. Furthermore, Professor Clavien was appointed Congress President of the 13th IHPBA World Congress in Geneva in 2018 and Outcome4Medicine Consensus Conference in 2022 and organized these major events. He is currently Associate Editor of two top surgical and hepatology journals (Annals of Surgery and Journal of Hepatology), and in the editorial of many other high ranked international journals. He was appointed Associate Editor of Annals of Surgery to cover the liver topics, and Editor for the ESA articles. He received many competitive grants and awards, including one of the most prestigious prizes for scientific research in Switzerland, the Otto Naegeli Award 2008, and the UEGW (European Union of Gastroenterology) Award 2012 for his research in partial liver graft. He has also written several books, with the very popular book of Medical Care of the Liver Transplant Patient and an Atlas of Upper Gastrointestinal and Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Surgery.

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Professor Clavien received the Honorary Fellowship of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) and of the American Surgical Association (ASA). He was also appointed honorary member of the Académie Nationale de Médecine in France and in year 2020 he became member of prestigious National Academy of Medicine, USA, as being the only surgeon outside of the USA.