Lifetime Achievement Awards
Following on from the successful Lifetime Achievement Awards in 2022, the 50th anniversary of the BTS, the BTS Council and Executive decided in 2024 to award these on an annual basis.
The Lifetime Achievement Awards celebrate the clinicians and scientists who have made pioneering developments, advancements and discoveries in the field of transplantation and who have dedicated their careers to providing care to transplant patients.
The awards are not only to express gratitude from the Society and its members but also from the countless patients who have received life-saving transplants and ongoing care.
Each Councillor or Executive can nominate a single candidate, with the Executive short-listing further. The short-list is submitted to Council for a vote, with the Executive only voting to tie-break. If a Council or Executive member is nominated, they’re not eligible to vote.
The winner is announced at the gala dinner at the Annual Congress.
Lifetime Achievement Awards 2022 – Winners
Professor Christopher Watson
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Chris Watson received a Lifetime Achievement Award because of his collaborative, engaged, expert, innovative and committed contribution to organ transplantation in the UK and wider, for over 35 years.
He is a dedicated, innovative, practice-changing, widely respected clinician who always wears his expertise lightly.
Professor Michael Nicholson
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Professor Mike Nicholson is the outstanding International Transplant Surgical Innovator of his generation.
Without his continuing endeavours the British Transplantation Society would lack one of its major research contributors, not only in his personal insights and innovations, but the work of all of his protégés throughout the country.’
Professor Darius Mirza
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Darius has always prioritised his role as a teacher to all members of the transplant team. He has transformed the lives of many patients and families, with his skill and knowledge as a surgeon, his care for his patient and the support he has given colleagues nationally and internationally.
His greatest professional skill is his ability to communicate with patients whether adult, teenager or child, finding the ability to engage in conversation and put them at ease, ensuring they are the focus before discussing medical information, in language they can understand.
Professor Peter Friend
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Peter has been part of the fabric of Organ donation and Transplantation in the UK for more than 30 years.
He has transformed the field of transplantation through ground-breaking research, innovation, commercialization and clinical translation of improvements in organ perfusion.
Professor Sir Roy Calne
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His career is a catalogue of innovation. There are many truly great pioneers in the field from the UK who are now no longer in practice, and Roy Calne stands within that small elite group.
Roy Calne was involved in a number of UK and world firsts….the first liver transplant outside the US, the first heart-lung-liver transplant with John Wallwork, the first small bowel transplant and first multivisceral transplant in the UK.
Ms. Lisa Burnapp
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‘Lisa Burnapp has dedicated her life and career to organ donation and transplantation focussing on living kidney donation.
She has been at the forefront of all the progress and developments in the field and has been the driving force behind the UK living donor kidney-sharing scheme, which is an exemplar to the rest of the world.
As a nurse – Lisa has held many important national and international positions that very few nurses have achieved
Lifetime Achievement Awards 2024 – Winner
Professor John Dark
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Professor John Dark has made a colossal contribution to heart and lung transplantation globally and although he is now retired clinically, he continues to work tirelessly to advance our field through research.
As a student, he spent an elective in Toronto with Len Bailey, the world leader in paediatric cardiac transplants. In Newcastle he was a student with, and then houseman to, Ross Taylor, with whom he started his research career. After general surgery training in Glasgow, he served as cardiothoracic senior registrar to Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub at Harefield, including assisting in the UK’s first heart-lung transplant. A fellowship followed under Joel Cooper, Director of the new heart/lung programme in Toronto, where he assisted with some of the world’s first successful lung transplants.
In 1987, after a period in Edinburgh, he moved to The Freeman Hospital, Newcastle Upon Tyne, where he took over Directorship of the heart programme from Chris McGregor who had started it in 1985. He continued to develop thoracic transplantation leading the department for the next 30 years making it the most active in the UK and one of the most highly respected in the world. John pushed transplant boundaries, taking part in the first single lung transplant in the UK in 1987, performing the first bilateral lung transplant in Europe in 1990 and the first UK DCD lung transplant in 2000. John was an early adopter of innovative technology such as ex vivo organ perfusion (EVLP) and was a PI for the NIHR HTA DEVELOP-UK study, the world’s first non-commercial EVLP trial. In 2000, he was appointed to Chair of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Newcastle University. He has over 300 peer-reviewed publications, including papers in Nature and Nature Medicine, contributed to international guidelines and has supervised 8 PhD or MD students. He was an Associate Editor of both the American Journal of Transplantation and the European Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery 2010-2016. As a legacy of John’s leadership, the Freeman remains a major centre of cardiothoracic transplantation in the UK, the only offering both adult and paediatric thoracic transplantation.
John has led several international transplant organisations; President of the European Society of Transplantation (1999), President of the International Society for Heart & Lung Transplantation (2010-2011) and President of the European Society for Heart Lung Transplantation in 1994. He received Honorary Membership from the British Transplantation Society in 2022.
He was the NHSBT National Clinical Lead for Governance (2012-2018) and UK representative on The Council of Europe Committee on Transplantation (2016-2018). Previously he served on UKXIRA and SaBTO. He is an active member of the British Transplantation Society (twice on Council), encouraging a whole new generation of transplant surgeons and other professionals. He has presented keynote lectures, chaired conferences, and participated in television documentaries to widen knowledge of transplantation in the UK.
John continues in research. He is a senior investigator for the NIHR BTRU in Organ Donation and Transplantation, leading studies in heart perfusion. In 2020, as co-Chief investigator he was awarded a £1.3 million grant by NIHR HTA to fund SIGNET, the world’s largest donor intervention RCT. He is a PI on the NIHR funded SIGNET-EME study and continues to serve on NHSBT working parties.
John Dark’s career has spanned more than four decades, has had a major impact on transplantation in the UK and worldwide and has provided the community with an extraordinary body of work and serves as a model for cardiothoracic transplant surgeons. We can think of no one more deserving of the British Transplantation Society Lifetime Achievement Award.
Lifetime Achievement Awards 2025 – Winner
Professor Tony Dorling
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It is a pleasure and a privilege to award Professor Tony Dorling with the 2025 BTS Lifetime Achievement Award. As a clinician and a scientist, he has been at the forefront of transplantation in the United Kingdom for the last 20 years and he has inspired a whole generation of clinicians and scientists through his example and leadership.
His scientific research has focused on one of the most important clinical problems, namely the rejection process, and, in particular, chronic rejection. He has published more than 130 peer-reviewed publications and secured many millions of pounds in funding over the last decade. He has supervised many PhD students many of whom continue his work across the country. He has been the Principal Investigator in three seminal transplantation studies in the UK, namely RituxiCAN, GAMECHANgER and OuTSMART. Indeed, OuTSMART is the largest ever randomised controlled study of renal transplant patients in the UK.
Over the last two decades he has made an enormous contribution to the British Transplantation Society. He presented many abstracts, has given plenary lectures and on two occasions his trainees have collected the blue riband Medawar Medal. His contribution is indicative of his role as one of the country’s leading translational scientists. He has also been prominent at European (ESOT), American (ATC) and international meetings as both a presenter and invited speaker.
At Guy’s Hospital his leadership is highlighted in organising the internationally renowned Frontiers in Transplantation course, serving as Deputy Director of the MRC Centre for Transplantation before directing the Guy’s Hospital Centre for Nephrology, Urology and Transplantation, and now acting on the NIHR independent steering committee objectively evaluating national transplant research.
As a champion of the patients with renal failure who are hardest to transplant, he has spearheaded the antibody-incompatible transplant programme at Guy’s Hospital, enabling more than 100 patients to receive a lifesaving transplant who otherwise would have waited many years or never received a transplant. His research has influenced how kidneys are nationally allocated and the development of the UK Living Kidney Sharing Scheme.
Perhaps his greatest legacy will be that he has inspired and trained a large proportion of those who will bid to fill them.
