Aviva Goldberg
Vice-President

University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB

Dr. Aviva Goldberg is Section Head of Nephrology in the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health and Associate Dean, UGME Student Affairs, Max Rady College of Medicine in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Dr. Goldberg received her MD from the University of Calgary, then went on to pediatric residency and completed part of her nephrology fellowship in Winnipeg.  She completed her nephrology fellowship with transplant focus at the Feinberg School of Medicine (Northwestern University, Chicago, IL) where she also completed a clinical fellowship in Bioethics and Medical Humanities in 2006.  In 2007 she was also awarded a Masters of Arts in Bioethics and Health Policy from Loyola University Chicago.

Dr. Goldberg is a director of the Canadian Society of Transplantation, co-director of the Professionalism program in the Undergraduate Medical Education department at the Max Rady College of Medicine.  She has published and lectured nationally and internationally on ethics, health policy and medical humanities subjects in transplantation, ethics and pediatrics.   She is a member of the International Pediatric Transplant Association ethics committee, and the ethics committees of Canadian Blood Services and the American Society of Pediatric Nephrology.  She recently co-edited the book Ethical Issues in Pediatric Organ Transplantation, the first book solely on pediatric transplant ethics.  She was awarded the 2018 Canadian Association of Medical Education’s Certificate of Merit.

Sacha DeSerres
Secretary

Laval University
Montreal, QC

Sacha De Serres received his MD from the University of Montreal, followed by FRCPC in Internal Medicine and Nephrology at Laval University. He then completed a 3-year Research Fellowship in transplant immunology at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and received a Master of Epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health. He is currently Associate Professor of Medicine at Laval University and Nephrologist and CHU de Québec.

At the national level, he served as Chair of the 2018 joint CST-CBS-CNTRP-CBMTG Transplant Summit Scientific Committee, and as Chair of the CST Research Committee from 2015 to 2017. At the international level, he has been elected as Executive Member of American Society of Transplantation Transplant Diagnostic Committee for a 2-year term, from 2016 to 2018. He also served as a member of the AST Transplantation and Immunology Research Network Scientific Committee from 2015 to 2018.

His research program focuses on cell-based assays to identify over-immunosuppression and on the mechanisms of antibody-mediated rejection. Since 2011, he has received continuous funding from different agencies including Kidney Foundation of Canada, CIHR, CFI and FRQS. He currently holds a CIHR project grant as principal investigator and is co-chair holder of the Nephrology Research Chair at Laval University.

Prosanto Chaudhury
Treasurer

McGill University
Montreal, QC

Dr Chaudhury joined the Department of Surgery of McGill University in July 2007 after completing Fellowship training in Transplantation and HPB both at McGill and at Northwestern University in Chicago. He received my Master’s degree in Evidence-based Health Care from the University of Oxford in the Fall of 2007. Since His return, his clinical activities have been based at the Royal Victoria Hospital and have centered on the treatment of complex hepato-pancreato-biliary oncology and organ transplantation. He is currently cross-appointed to the departments of Surgery and Oncology as Associate Professor.

He has been an actively involved with both the Liver and Kidney pancreas committees of Transplant Quebec, and has been an on-call medical director with Transplant Quebec since 2008. Dr. Chaudhury has active interest in the use and outcomes of organs from DCD donors and has helped roll out DCD donation in Quebec. He was appointed Medical Director-Transplantation at Transplant Quebec in November of 2016. Dr Chaudhury has also been a longstanding member of the Canadian Liver Transplant Network and currently serves as its vice-president.

He has served the CST in several roles over the years, participating in the Standards Committee, the Annual Scientific Meeting Committee (chair and co-chair), and the leading practice guidelines committee.

Olwyn Johnston
Director

University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC

Dr. Johnston is a Transplant Nephrologist and Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. Her administrative roles include Medical Director of Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Program at Vancouver General Hospital. She is also the Medical Lead for the Living Kidney Donor Program at Vancouver General Hospital. She is Program Director for the Clinical Transplant Nephrology Fellowship Program at the University of British Columbia, where up to four transplant nephrology fellows are trained annually as part of an AST-accredited training program.

After receiving a Bachelor of Medical Science and Medical Degree at University College Dublin, Ireland, she completed an internal medicine residency in Dublin, Ireland and the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio. Her nephrology fellowship was completed in Dublin, Ireland followed by a Masters in transplant proteomics at University College Dublin. She then completed a transplant fellowship at the University of British Columbia Kidney Transplant Program, incorporating a Masters in Health Science at the University of British Columbia. She has been a member of the Division of Nephrology, University of British Columbia and a Transplant Nephrologist at Vancouver General Hospital since 2008.

In addition to her clinical, administrative and teaching roles, she also has a keen interest in clinical transplant research with involvement in national and international clinical trials. On a national level she has an active history of service to the CST, through committee membership (CST Grants and Awards Committee Chair (2017-currently) and Leading Clinical Practice Committee Co-Chair (2014-2017)). She has contributed to national kidney transplant policies through her membership of both the national Kidney Transplant Advisory Committee (KTAC) and Living Donor Advisory Committee (LDAC).

Karen Doucette
Director

University of Alberta
Edmonton, AB

Dr. Doucette is Professor of Medicine and Division Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alberta since 2015. She is also the Edmonton Zone Alberta Health Services Section Chief for Transplantation, appointed in 2022. She completed her undergraduate (BSc) degree and MD at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Internal Medicine training at Queen’s University and subspecialty training in Infectious Diseases at the University of Manitoba. While at University of Manitoba she undertook additional subspecialty training in viral hepatitis and liver disease. In 2003 she completed a clinical and research fellowship in Transplant Infectious Diseases at the Massachusetts General Hospital and in 2007 completed a Master’s in Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health. In 2022 she was certified through the Practice Eligibility route as a Diplomate of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in Solid Organ Transplantation.

Her clinical and research interests are in infections in immunocompromised hosts, particularly solid organ transplant recipients, and viral hepatitis. She was the Medical Director for the Infectious Diseases Hepatitis Support Program from 2006-April 2015 and led the Transplant Infectious Diseases Clinical Program from 2004 to 2008 and the Transplant ID Fellowship Training Program from 2008-2020. She has published over 70 peer reviewed manuscripts and authored or co- authored several book chapters in addition to both national and international guidelines in the fields of transplantation and viral hepatitis. She has delivered many international and national scientific lectures, as well as over 200 CME sessions regionally and nationally. In 2016 she was inducted in the second cohort of Fellows of the American Society of Transplantation and in 2021 was awarded the Canadian Society of Transplantation’s Clinician Recognition Award for contributions to program development, innovation and education, notably in the area of viral hepatitis and organ donation and transplantation. She is an editorial board member of Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation and Transplant Infectious Diseases and Associate Editor of JHLT Open.

Dr. Doucette has completed Executive Education leadership training through the Universities of Calgary and Edmonton Schools of Business and held a number of positions in National/International Societies. At the CST, Dr. Doucette was a member of the Education Committee from 2014-2021. She has been a Faculty Member contributing over the years to the CST Fellows Symposium 2007-2020. Dr. Doucette was also a member of the CST committee formed to seek accreditation of Transplant training by the RCPSC. Ultimately this led to the recognition of the Area of focused competence (AFC) in Solid Organ Transplantation and Dr. Doucette served on the RCPSC AFC SOT Committee 2012-2022

Lakshman Gunaratnam
Director

London Health Science Centre
London, ON

Dr. Gunaratnam holds undergraduate and master’s degrees in immunology from the University of Toronto, and a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Ottawa. At the same time, he pursued research on the biology of cancer in the laboratory of Dr. Stephen Lee. After finishing residency in Internal Medicine at Ottawa, he went on to complete his Fellowship in Nephrology and Kidney Transplantation at Harvard University. At Harvard, he completed a 3-year post-doctoral research fellowship with Dr. Joseph Bonventre, a world leader in the areas of kidney injury and repair. There, he studied specific aspects of the molecule Kidney Injury Molecule-1, which remains the current focus of Dr. Gunaratnam’s independent research program. He joined Western in 2010 as a Clinical-Scientist and transplant nephrologist.

As a junior investigator, Dr. Gunaratnam received highly competitive salary awards, including the KRESCENT Fellowship Award, the KRESCENT New Investigator Award and the Schulich Clinician-Scientist Award. He has built a successful independent research program focused on uncovering KIM-1 mediated mechanisms of repair after kidney transplantation, and the role of KIM-1 in renal cancer. He also serves as the site principal investigator for several prospective studies and randomized trials in transplant patients. His group has been steadily funded by CIHR and trained over 100 students in his laboratory. In recognition of his achievements, he was Awarded the Dr. Robert Zhong Endowed Chair in Translational Transplant Research in 2021 and the Dean’s Award of Excellence from Western in 2022.

Dr. Gunaratnam served as course co-chair for the Infection and Immunity block for the
Undergraduate Medical Education program for 10 years and taught immunology in the Graduate program at Western. He also teaches medical residents, and nephrology and transplant fellows.

Dr. Gunaratnam is the Medical Director for the Multi-Organ Transplant Program at London Health Sciences Centre. At the provincial and national levels, he influences the practice of transplantation in Ontario as a member of the Kidney Pancreas Working Group (Trillium Gift of Life Network), and the Canadian Transplant Advisory Committee (Canadian Blood Services) that are responsible for transplant policy decisions including organ allocation.

Dr. Gunaratnam’s goals are to improve the lives of patients with end-stage kidney disease through his research endeavors and leadership positions in transplantation. Dr. Gunaratnam has been a member in good standing since 2019 and has taught at CST-Astellas Fellows Symposium, on and off, since this time. He also served on the Scientific Meetings Committee in 2018 and co-chaired the 20219-2020 meetings with Dr. Ho). Together they were instrumental in organizing the highly successful 2019 CST Transplant Summit which was held at Banff, Alberta. Dr. Gunaratnam has been a dedicated peer reviewer for the CST-Astellas T3 competition for over 2 years. He is also a founding member of the Canadian Donation and Transplantation Research Program which has strong ties with the CST. As in 2022, Dr. Gunaratnam will be MC for the 2023 CST meeting where he will be the receiving the 2023 CST Research Excellence Award.

Ngan Lam
Director

University of Calgary
Calgary, AB

Dr. Lam is an Associate Professor and Clinician-Scientist at the Cumming School of Medicine in the Divisions of Transplantation and Nephrology and a Transplant Nephrologist with the Southern Alberta Transplant Program at the University of Calgary. My program of research focuses on using integrated healthcare administrative databases to improve processes of care and clinical outcomes for living kidney donors and kidney transplant recipients.

Rahul Mainra
Director

University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon, SK

Dr Rahul Mainra lives and works on Treaty 6 territory and the Homeland of the Métis. He is a transplant nephrologist in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan with the Saskatchewan Transplant Program since 2008 and is Professor of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan. Rahul completed his MD degree and Internal Medicine residency at the University of Saskatchewan, followed by a nephrology fellowship at Western University in London, Ontario. He then completed a Renal transplant fellowship in Sydney, Australia and a Masters in Medicine (Clin Epi) at the University of Sydney.

Rahul has been a member of the CST since 2008. He was a member of the research committee from 2013-2022 and the education committee since 2016. In 2022 he became chair of the education committee and is currently co-chair of the Scientific Meetings committee. He was a member of the Scientific Meetings committee from 2020-2021 and involved in the annual Fellows Symposium since 2018. He was also involved in the CST working group that was improving high school education around topics of organ donation and transplantation. He has represented the CST as a member of the planning committee for the CDTRP’s Patient, Family and Donor Research Forum in 2020 and 2021.

Nationally, Rahul has been actively involved in various CBS projects and committees including the Kidney Transplant Advisory committee, Willing to Cross and Optimizing Kidney Utilization. He is co-chair of the Living Donation working group within the Health Canada Organ and Donation Transplant Collaborative.

Locally, Rahul has been active within the undergraduate medical curriculum at the University of Saskatchewan. He was Director of UGME for the Department of Medicine from 2016-2022. He leads the Kidney and Urinary Tract module and developed a Solid Organ Transplant elective for final year Medical students.

Although education is his passion he likes to dabble in research and collaborate with national and international colleagues on various topics such as AMR, living donation, patient education and cardiovascular screening.