Valery Shumakov

Valery Ivanovich Shumakov was a Russian surgeon and transplantologist, born on 9 November 1931 and died on 27 January 2008, who is remembered as the founding father of organ transplantation in Russia and as a pioneer of artificial organ surgery. He began his medical career by researching blood flow during operations for congenital heart disorders. In 1974 he created the Medical Research Institute of Transplantation and Artificial Organs, which he headed for more than thirty years. He was the first doctor in Russia to transplant a liver, a heart and a thyroid successfully, and he wrote more than twenty books and some 450 scientific publications. A member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, he received Soviet and Russian state honours, among them Hero of Socialist Labour, the Order of Lenin and the Order of Saint Andrew, and he was named an Honoured Citizen of Moscow.