Prof. Jan Ringers

Prof. Jan Ringers is one of the Netherlands' most experienced transplant surgeons, holding a senior professorial appointment at Leiden University and leading the transplant surgery program at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC)—one of the Netherlands' eight university medical centers and a recognized center of excellence in organ transplantation. LUMC has been a member of the Eurotransplant international organ exchange network since its inception, giving the center access to a broad pool of donor organs and a decades-long track record in complex transplant cases.

Over his 30-year career, Prof. Ringers has performed hundreds of kidney transplantations—from both deceased and living donors—as well as pancreas transplantations and the technically demanding simultaneous kidney-pancreas (SPK) procedure, which offers type 1 diabetic patients with kidney failure the possibility of insulin independence and improved quality of life through a single surgical intervention. He has been a champion of living donor transplantation in the Netherlands, including laparoscopic hand-assisted and fully laparoscopic donor nephrectomy, which allows kidney donors to recover faster and return to normal life sooner than with open surgery.

A key aspect of Prof. Ringers' contribution to transplant medicine is his research and clinical work in organ preservation and machine perfusion. As the global shortage of donor organs persists, technologies such as hypothermic and normothermic machine perfusion allow surgeons to evaluate and resuscitate marginal donor organs—particularly extended criteria donor kidneys that would previously have been discarded—before transplantation. Prof. Ringers has been at the forefront of implementing these technologies in clinical practice at LUMC and has contributed substantially to the scientific evidence base for their use.

He routinely evaluates international patients, including EU citizens exercising their right to cross-border healthcare, who seek transplant assessment or a specialist second opinion on their readiness for transplantation.

Prof. Ringers completed his medical degree (Geneeskunde) at Leiden University, one of the Netherlands' oldest and most prestigious research universities, followed by his surgical residency and subspecialty training in transplant surgery at LUMC. His PhD dissertation focused on kidney preservation and ischemia-reperfusion injury, establishing the scientific basis for his subsequent clinical and research work in organ preservation technology. He completed visiting fellowships at transplant centers in the United States and the United Kingdom, gaining exposure to high-volume American transplant programs and early experience with laparoscopic donor surgery programs. He has been a full professor of transplant surgery at Leiden University for many years and has supervised numerous PhD students and surgical trainees who have gone on to lead transplant programs across Europe.

Prof. Ringers' operative practice encompasses the full range of kidney and pancreas transplantation. For kidney transplantation, he performs both deceased-donor procedures—including expanded criteria donor and donation after circulatory death (DCD) kidneys evaluated with machine perfusion—and living-donor procedures via laparoscopic hand-assisted or minimally invasive techniques that significantly reduce donor morbidity. For diabetic patients with end-stage renal disease, he performs simultaneous kidney-pancreas (SPK) transplantation, a complex procedure requiring careful reconstruction of both the exocrine and endocrine pancreas alongside the kidney transplant.

His organ preservation expertise includes normothermic and hypothermic machine perfusion of kidneys, with real-time assessment of viability markers including perfusion flow, resistance, and lactate clearance. He uses machine perfusion both as a tool to rehabilitate marginal organs and as a platform for pre-transplant organ quality assessment, which informs the decision to accept or decline a donor organ. He participates in multidisciplinary transplant teams that include nephrologists, diabetologists, and immunologists to ensure optimal patient selection, pre-transplant preparation, and post-transplant management.

Prof. Ringers has authored or co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications in transplantation medicine, with a focus on kidney and pancreas transplantation outcomes, extended criteria donor utilization, and organ preservation technology. His research on machine perfusion for kidney transplantation has been published in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases, Transplantation, and the American Journal of Transplantation, contributing to the body of evidence that has made machine perfusion an increasingly standard tool in transplant centers across Europe and North America. He has contributed to Eurotransplant outcome analyses examining center-level variation in transplant outcomes and the factors predicting long-term graft survival. He has been principal investigator on Dutch and European multicenter studies evaluating DCD kidney outcomes with machine perfusion and has contributed data to international registries. He serves on the scientific advisory board of Eurotransplant and the research committee of the Transplantation Society.

Prof. Ringers and the LUMC transplant program are experienced in evaluating patients from across Europe and internationally who are listed for or seeking transplant assessment. LUMC has a dedicated international patient service that coordinates pre-transplant evaluation, waitlist registration (for EU patients who may be listed on Eurotransplant through LUMC), and post-transplant follow-up in coordination with the patient's home country physicians. Consultations are conducted in Dutch and English. EU patients can seek care at LUMC under EU cross-border healthcare provisions, and some may be eligible for listing on the Eurotransplant waitlist during their stay. Non-EU patients are assessed privately with comprehensive cost and logistics information provided before travel. Video consultations are available for initial transplant eligibility discussions.

Prof. Ringers received the Eurotransplant Scientific Award for his contributions to organ preservation research and its impact on improving the utilization of donor organs across the Eurotransplant member countries—Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, and Slovenia. Leiden University Medical Center awarded him its Research Excellence Prize for sustained high-quality research output in transplant science. He is a Fellow of the Transplantation Society (TTS), the world's largest professional organization in transplantation. He has delivered keynote addresses at TTS world transplant congresses and ESOT (European Society for Organ Transplantation) meetings, and has contributed to Eurotransplant and ESOT position statements on extended criteria donor utilization and machine perfusion.