The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA appointed an inaugural chair in surgery Thursday.
Jerzy Kupiec-Weglinski, a professor of surgery, pathology and laboratory medicine, will serve as the first Paul I. Terasaki Chair in Surgery, which was created after Terasaki donated $2 million in 2010. Kupiec-Weglinski is currently the director of the division of liver and pancreas transplantation at Dumont-UCLA Transplantation Research Laboratories.
Kupiec-Weglinski, who joined the UCLA division of liver and pancreas transplantation in 1997, has worked in the field of experimental organ transplantation for more than 35 years. He received his doctorate at the Polish Academy of Sciences and was an associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School for 18 years.
Kupiec-Weglinski is also a former member of the board of directors for the American Society of Transplantation and a foreign member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Terasaki, who died in 2016, was a professor emeritus of surgery known for his work in organ transplantation and medicine. His donation to endow the chair position initially funded two postdoctoral fellowships in transplantation.