Dr. Alan Zambeli-Ljepović's goal over these two years is to merge his long-time interest in global health and my clinical interest in abdominal transplant surgery. Specifically, this means developing the foundational skill set, evidence, and global partnerships he will need to achieve his long-term career goals: building and expanding kidney transplantation programs worldwide. In the short term, this means
Over the past year and a half, he has assembled a team of surgeons, nephrologists, and health economists from the U.S., Canada, and multiple Sub-Saharan African countries. They meet monthly to advance our dual aims of research (e.g. cost-utility analyses to help countries prioritize transplantation vs dialysis) and system strengthening (e.g. transplant registry development). Their U.S.-based team includes UCSF surgeons Peter Stock (helped pass the HOPE Act, which enabled kidney transplantation among HIV positive patients), Doruk Ozgediz (global surgery expert with >20 years’ experience in building surgical capacity in Uganda), John Rose (global surgical disease modeling expert), and Shareef Syed (transplant fellowship program director with experience building training programs in US and abroad), as well as Stefano Bertozzi, a health economist from UC Berkeley and former director of HIV and tuberculosis programs at the Gates Foundation.
None of this would be possible if it weren’t for the methodological support and leadership training he has gained from NCSP, as well as the connections to the global health community he has been able to access through the UCSF Center for Health Equity in Surgery and Anesthesia.
Research Interests: Abdominal (kidney, liver, pancreas) transplantation, global surgery, health policy