ASTS-Roche Pioneer Award 2008

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The ASTS-Roche Pioneer award is the most distinguished award bestowed upon an individual by the ASTS for a significant contribution to the field of transplantation.  (Previous Award Recipients)

Groth attended Medical School at the Karolinska Institute, and he has his M.D. (1961) and Ph.D. (1965).

In the years 1966-67 and 1971-72 Groth worked at the then leading Transplant Center in the world at the University of Colorado Medical Center, first as an NIH international Post Doctoral Fellow, and later as an Associate Professor of Surgery. The program was headed by Thomas E. Starzl. In 1966, an organ preservation chamber for livers was developed, and human anti-lymphocyte globulin was produced in horses. Using these new tools, Starzl performed the first successful human liver transplantations in the world in 1967; Groth was a key member of the team.

Working in the dog model he established that transplantation of lymphatic tissues can correct haemophilia, subsequently a spleenic transplantation was performed in a patient with haemophilia. Another first was a human, allogeneic parathyroid transplantation with biopsy proven graft survival.

In 1973 Groth became the Chief of Transplantation Surgery at Huddinge Hospital in Stockholm. He was appointed Professor of Transplantation Surgery at the Karolinska Institute in 1984. He retired in 2000. His lifetime work has focused on clinical kidney, pancreas, liver, and islet transplantation, and on research in xenotransplantation. The first pancreas (1974), bone marrow (1975), liver (1984), and islet transplantation (1998) in Sweden were carried out by Groth and his co-workers.

The pancreas transplant program at the Huddinge Hospital is the second oldest ongoing program in the world. In 1982 the group reported on excellent results with segmental pancreatic transplantation with diversion of the exocrine secretion in the recipient’s bowel. Subsequently, the group showed that pancreatic transplantation can result in the amelioration of the secondary complications of diabetes (1987). More recently they found that the 10 years survival after combined pancreas and kidney transplantation was superior to that among diabetic patients who had received a kidney alone (1999). Groth edited the first monograph on Pancreatic Transplantation, (Saunders, 1988).

Groth has been particularly interested in immunosuppressive agents, and he was the chief investigator for multinational clinical studies of cyclosporine, tacrolimus, mycophenolate mofetil and sirolimus. His group was the first to report that sirolimus is as potent a immunosuppressant, as is cyclosporine (1999).

Groth has also done some pioneer work with regards to transplantation for metabolic diseases. Thus, he showed that transplantation of isolated hepatocytes could correct metabolic deficiencies in rats (1976). This was the first report regarding hepatocyte transplantation. Furthermore he reported that patients with Gaucher’s disease could be cured by allogenic bone marrow transplantation (1985). His group performed the first liver transplantation for familial amyloidotic polyneuropathy, with metabolic correction (1984). Today, more than 1000 patients suffering from this disease have been treated with liver transplantation worldwide.

In the early 1990's Groth’s group performed a pilot trial with pig-to-man islet transplantation, which resulted in a number of important observations, including the first finding of surviving pig cells in the human body (1994). A crucial finding was that no transmission of virus from pig to man was observed (1998).

Groth was the President of the Transplantation Society, 2001-2002. He was the founding President of the Scandinavian Transplant Society (1983), the International Pancreas and Islet Transplant Association (1993), and the International Xenotransplantation Association (1998). He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (1989), the American Surgical Association, the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (1997), and the International Xenotransplantation Association (2005). He is a member of the American Philosophical Society (2004), the oldest scientific Society in the USA (founded 1743).

Groth was a member of the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute (which awards the Nobel Prize in Medicine) 1986-1999, he was the Chairman of the Assembly, 1998.

In 1998 he was awarded the King’s Medal for “eminent accomplishment in transplantation surgery, internationally and in Sweden”.

Groth received the following awards:
* The Reuterskiöld Award 1995 (the foremost surgical Award in Sweden)
* The Thomas E. Starzl Award (Turkey) 2005
* The Medawar Prize 2006 (the foremost international Award in Transplantation)
* The Sushuruta Award (India) 2006

Groth is currently a Visiting Professor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, (2005), and at the Xiangya Hospital of the Central South University, (2006), in Changsha, China. At both Universities, he is serving as an advisor on studies on the transplantation of pig islets for diabetes.

Since 2005 he is a Member of the WHO Expert Advisory Panel on Human Cell, Tissue and Organ Transplantation.

His bibliography includes approximately 700 scientific articles and some 40 books chapters.

Previous ASTS-Roche Pioneer Award Recipients