Patient Services

Texas Transplant Center

Texas Transplant Center at UTMB

Message from the Director

Dr. Luca Cicalese, Director, Texas Transplant Center Organ transplantation at UTMB has a long tradition of excellence. Founded more than 40 years ago, it has been a pioneering force in the field since then:

UTMB's kidney transplantation program (established in 1967 and the first in the Houston/Galveston area) has performed more than 1,500 transplants to date while continuing to achieve excellent results by consistently meeting or exceeding national standards for long-term graft survival.

The pancreas transplant program (established in 1988) continues to grow while forging advances in transplantation applications and research. The pancreas team has performed more than 150 transplants to date and is among the largest and most active in Texas.

The university's heart and lung transplantation program (established in 1993) has ranked in the top 10 percent in the nation for one-year survival rates for heart transplantation.

UTMB's new liver transplantation program specializes in all aspects of liver care, including the latest approaches in immunosuppressive therapy, treatment of hepatitis and cancer and surgical techniques for liver transplantation.

The new hepatobiliary program specializes in the advanced care of liver cancer and pancreatic surgery, including laparoscopic liver resection, tumor ablation, and conventional liver resection for cirrhotic and non-cirrhotic patients as well as total pancreatectomy with auto-transplantation of insulin producing cells (pancreatic islets).

The surgical and medical subspecialty teams within the Texas Transplant Center not only perform transplants but also provide medical care and services for people with organ failure or other diseases in advanced stages. Our patients also benefit from the work of researchers at UTMB. By applying research discoveries, Texas Transplant Center surgeons offer new hope and increase their patients’ long-term survival prospects.

Regardless of the type of procedure, UTMB's transplant care team works diligently with our patients, their families and referring physicians to provide constant feedback regarding health status. We believe good communication is the key to providing exemplary patient care.

If you know of someone who would benefit from our program or if you simply want more information about our center and its capabilities, we are at your service.

• Our 24/7, toll-free phone number is (800) 323-4109.
• And, you can reach me via email at: lucicale@utmb.edu.

Each of us in the Texas Transplant Center wishes you and yours the best of health. However, should you ever need us, we are here for you.

Luca Cicalese MD, FACS
Professor of Surgery
John Sealy Distinguished Chair in Transplantation Surgery
Director, Texas Transplant Center

Transplant News and Information

A lung transplant success story

Matthew Keller had a lung transplant at UTMB in 2008. He says his life has totally changed thanks to UTMB. Watch a video of Keller telling what the surgery has meant to him in the UTMB Newsroom or on YouTube. Click HQ on YouTube for best quality.

UTMB performs life-changing cell transplantation

Complications from acute pancreatitis after her gallbladder was removed turned 24-year-old Marissa Garcia’s life into a nightmare. Debilitated by constant pain and nausea, Marissa landed in the hospital for one week every month for two years. Doctors offered medicine but no prospect of a cure. But Garcia’s fighting spirit led her 400 miles from her home in Harlingen to UTMB. There she found hope, and ultimately a cure, in Drs. Taylor Riall and Cristiana Rastellini. The two physicians are the core members of a team offering a complex procedure called auto pancreatic islet transplantation, or PIT. For patients like Garcia, it’s a “miracle.” Read more

Texas Transplant Center teams with Austin partners to ride out storm

As Hurricane Ike approached Galveston, see how preparations were made to care for recent transplant recipients at UTMB, in this video news report posted to You Tube by the staff of The Daily Texan. The video, produced and posted this past October, features insights from UTMB and Seton physicians, clinical staff and patients.

[Watch video on You Tube]

Two living donor transplants for one family, 17 years apart

UTMB transplant teams performed two living donor transplants for one family, 17 years apart. Robert Guerra, 22, made the six-hour trip from Brownsville to UTMB to undergo a kidney transplant at the Texas Transplant Center. Guerra’s mother, Carmen, made the same trip nearly 20 years earlier when her daughter, then 13, had her own kidney transplant.

“I’ve been through this before,” said Carmen. “I wasn’t nervous. I knew my son, like my daughter before him, was in good hands.”

In the photo from left to right are UTMB nurse Suzanne Couture; Robert Guerra, kidney transplant recipient; and Carmen Guerra, Robert’s mother. Read the complete story and see video on the UTMB Newsroom.

Texas Transplant Center Practice Locations

Galveston, Texas
UTMB University Hospital Clinics
1005 Harborside Dr.
6th Floor, (409) 747-0799

Beaumont, Texas
Liver Transplant and Hepatobiliary Outreach Clinic
(800) 323-4109

Corpus Christi, Texas
Bay Area Kidney Disease Physicians
(800) 323-4109

McAllen, Texas
Texas Transplant Center--McAllen
(800) 323-4109

Midland/Odessa, Texas
Desert Milagro Clinic
(800) 323-4109

Texas Transplant Center
Houston-Galveston Area Physicians

Transplant Surgery

Luca Cicalese, M.D.

Professor of Surgery; Director of Transplant Services

Medical School: University of Rome “La Sapienza,” Rome, Italy

Residency Program: School of General Surgery II, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Rome, Italy

Fellowship Program: Transplant Surgery, T.E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Special Interests: Multi-organ transplantation; liver, intestinal transplantation; hepatobiliary surgery; laparoscopic hepatic surgery; immunosuppression and Hepatitis C; hepatocellular carcinoma; cellular transplantation

Research Projects: Effects of new immunosuppressive agents; treatments for liver cancer; ischemia reperfusion injury; organ/cellular preservation; mechanisms of acute and chronic rejection and tolerance induction; bio-artificial intestine; islet transplantation

Kristene K. Gugliuzza, M.D.

Professor of Surgery; Director of Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Program

Medical School: University of Illinois, Rockford, Illinois

Residency Program: Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana

Fellowship Program: Renal Transplantation, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana; pancreas transplantation, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Special Interests: Pancreas and renal transplantation; pediatric renal transplantation; quality management; surgical education; robotic surgery

Research Projects: Outcomes research; effects of new immunosuppressive agents; computer use in the academic surgical setting

Philip G. Thomas, M.D.

Assistant Professor of Surgery

Medical School: Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, India

Residency Program: Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research, Chandigarh, India

Transplant Fellowship: Thomas Starzl Institute of Transplantation, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Multi-organ Transplant Fellowship (1993-1995); Intestinal, Liver, and Multivisceral Transplant Fellowship (2002-2003)

Special Interest: Physiological adaptation following transplantation

Cristiana Rastellini, M.D.

Professor of Surgery, Medicine and Microbiology & Immunology; Director of Cellular Transplantation and Transplant Research

Medical School: University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Rome, Italy

Fellowship Program: Cell Transplant Research Fellowship, T.E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Special Interests: Organ transplantation; immunomodulation-immunosuppression; tolerance induction; cell transplantation; beta cell proliferation; diabetes

Research Projects: Organ/cellular preservation; mechanisms of acute and chronic rejection; tolerance induction; pancreatic islet transplantation; beta cell proliferation

View Publications

Guillermo A. Gomez, M.D.

Granville T. Hall Chair and Associate Professor of Surgery; Director of Minimally Invasive Surgery

Medical School: Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile School of Medicine

Residency Program: Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile School of Medicine–General Surgery and Surgical Gastroenterology; The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas–General Surgery

Special Interests: Endoscopic, laparoscopic, and robotic surgery

Research Projects: Studies in gastrointestinal endocrinology; surgical studies on metabolism of gastrointestinal hormones

Taylor Sohn Riall, M.D., Ph.D.

Associate Professor
John Sealy Distinguished Chair in Clinical Research

Medical School: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland

Residency: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland

Research: Clinical research in pancreatic cancer and other biliary malignancies; molecular genetics of pancreatic cancer, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland

Clinical Interests: Pancreatic and biliary cancer; benign diseases of the pancreas and biliary tree, including pancreatitis and benign bile duct strictures; gastrointestinal surgery

Research Interest: Treatment and outcomes in pancreatic cancer; intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms of the pancreas; benign pancreatic and biliary disease

Cardiothoracic Surgery

Vincent R. Conti, M.D.

Vincent Conti, M.D. Professor of Surgery; Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery

Medical School: Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts

Residency Program: University of California, Los Angeles, California; University of Alabama Medical Center, Birmingham, Alabama (Cardiovascular Surgery)

Special Interest: Surgery of acquired heart disease

Research Projects: Myocardial preservation for cardiac surgery; physiology of cardiopulmonary bypass

Scott D. Lick, M.D.

Associate Professor of Surgery; Director of Thoracic Organ Transplantation

Medical School: The University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota

Residency Program: The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona

Special Interest: Thoracic organ transplantation and assisted circulation; artificial lung development

Research Projects: Arterial venous CO2 removal; artifical lung

Daniel L. Beckles, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.C., F.C.C.P.

Assistant Professor, Director of Minimally Invasive Cardiothoracic Surgery

Medical School: State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York

Residency Programs: General Surgery, State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York and Cardiothoracic Surgery, University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas

Fellowship: Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital-Harvard Medical School, Boston Massachusetts

Special Interests: VATS lobectomy, minimally invasive esophagectomy, heart and lung transplant, off-pump coronary revascularization, mesothelioma, hyperhidrosis, pectus repair, tracheal resection, mediastinal tumors, surgical education and patient safety

Transplant Medicine

	Vincent Valentine, M.D. Professor of Medicine & Medical Director, UTMB Texas Transplant Center Medical School: Louisiana State University, New Orleans Residency Program: Heart and Lung Transplantation, Stanford University School of Medicine; Internal Medicine, Louisiana State University School of Medicine-New Orleans Fellowship: Pulmonary Medicine & Critical Care, Stanford University School of Medicine Special Interest: Heart-Lung transplantation, lung transplantation, end-state lung diseases, cystic fibrosis View Profile View Publications
	Alexander G. Duarte, M.D. Associate Professor Division of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine Department of Internal Medicine Medical School: University of Illinois-Chicago Residency Program: Internal Medicine Loyola University, Chicago Fellowship: Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine, Loyola University Special Interest: Lung transplantation, advanced lung disease, aerosol delivery and pulmonary hypertension. View Profile View Publications
	Andrea Duchini, M.D. Professor of Medicine, Gastroenterology Medical School: University of Florence (Università degli Studi di Firenze) Residency Program: University of Florence (Università degli Studi di Firenze) Fellowship: Gastroenterology Special Interest: Internal Medicine, Gastroenterology View Profile View Publications
	Roger Soloway, M.D. Professor of Medicine, Gastroenterology Medical School: Cornell University Medical College Residency Program: Gastroenterology, University of Pennsylvania Fellowship: Gastroenterology, Mayo Medical School Special Interest: Internal Medicine, Gastroenterology View Profile View Publications
	Michael Koerner, M.D., Ph.D. Professor of Medicine, Cardiology Medical School: Heinrich Heine University (Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf) Special Interest: Heart failure, transplantation View Profile View Publications
	Alejandro Barbagelata, M.D. Associate Professor of Medicine - Cardiology Residency Program: Cardiology, Sanatorio Guemes/Fundacion Favaioro Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Santorio Guermes/Fundacio Favaloro Fellowship: Diagnostic & Interventional Catherization, Sanatorio Guemes/Fundacion Favaioro Special Interest: Internal Medicine, Cardiology View Profile View Publications
	Robert Beach, M.D. Professor of Internal Medicine & Family Medicine Medical School: Louisiana State University School of Medicine-New Orleans Residency Program: Internal Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch Fellowships: Nephrology, University of Texas Medical Branch Specialization: Nephrology View Profile
	Ann Kathleen Gamilla-Crudo, MD Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, Nephrology Medical/Professional School: University of Santo Tomas, Philippines Residency Program: Internal Medicine, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Fellowships: Nephrology, University of Texas Medical Branch Internship: General Med/Surg, University of Santo Tomas, Philippines View Profile
	Shilpa Rastogi, M.D. Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine Medical School: Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi, India Residency Program: Internal Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch Fellowship: Nephrology, Baylor College of Medicine Specialization: Internal Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch View Profile