Joseph Magliocca, MD, has been named director of the Vanderbilt Transplant Center and surgical director of the Pediatric Liver Transplant Program.
Magliocca, professor of Surgery in the Division of Hepatobiliary Surgery and Liver Transplantation within the Department of Surgery, is a board-certified surgeon specializing in liver transplantation. He comes to Vanderbilt from Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, where he was an associate professor of Surgery and Pediatrics.
He served as surgical director of the adult Liver Transplant and Living Donor Liver Transplant programs in the Emory Transplant Center. He also served as the surgical director of the pediatric Liver Transplant Program at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and was a member of the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program at the Winship Cancer Institute.
“I am thrilled to join such an extraordinary team at this renowned institution,” Magliocca said. “My vision for the program is multifaceted; the primary priority is to deliver the highest quality organ transplant care to all patients in need, while maintaining exceptional patient outcomes. Additionally, our goals will focus on the continued development of the academic mission of the Transplant Center to advance the field of organ transplantation in Vanderbilt’s rich, academic environment. Finally, I want to continue the tradition of the Transplant Center as a place where people love to work. We aspire to continue our journey to be a national and international leader in transplantation.”
At Vanderbilt, Magliocca reports to Seth Karp, MD, H. William Scott Jr. Professor, chair of the Section of Surgical Sciences and former director of the Transplant Center.
“Vanderbilt is extremely fortunate to have recruited an established national leader as the director of our Transplant Center,” Karp said. “Dr. Magliocca brings a wealth of clinical experience in the adult and pediatric space as well as a vision to expand our services in patient care, research and education.”
Magliocca’s research interests include pediatric liver diseases, organ preservation, ischemia/reperfusion injury and management of immunosuppression in patients following transplantation.
His clinical specialties include adult and pediatric liver transplantation, which he will be continuing at Vanderbilt. He is also interested in expanding the use of machine perfusion to better preserve donor organs, thereby increasing the number of available organs and improving the ability of those on wait-lists to receive a timely transplant. Finally, he has a significant interest in expanding access to Vanderbilt’s transplant services for historically underrepresented patients.
“Proudly, our programs in organ transplantation are national leaders. Our patients deserve nothing less,” said C. Wright Pinson, MBA, MD, Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Health System Officer for VUMC. “I want to welcome Dr. Magliocca to VUMC and the important work of the Transplant Center, where thousands of lives are impacted each year. He joins us with a wealth of experience and is well prepared to lead the Center into a new era.”
Magliocca received his medical degree from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York before completing a residency in general surgery at the University of Michigan. He also completed a research and clinical fellowship in Abdominal Organ Transplant Surgery at the University of Wisconsin before joining the University of Florida as faculty.
At the University of Florida, Magliocca performed liver, kidney and pancreas transplants and had a particular focus on adult and pediatric liver diseases. He joined Emory in 2011 as a liver transplant surgeon and spent a large amount of his time and focus on pediatric liver transplantation, where he became passionate about serving the youngest transplant patients.
Magliocca’s memberships include the American College of Surgeons, the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, the Transplantation Society, the American Society of Transplantation, the International Liver Transplant Society, the International Pediatric Transplant Association, the Society of Pediatric Liver Transplantation and the Starzl Network for Excellence in Pediatric Transplantation.