Dr Hawthorne is Professor of Surgery at the University of Sydney, and also Director of the National Pancreas and Islet Transplant Laboratories for Australia's Clinical Islet Transplant program at Westmead Hospital, Sydney, Australia. He received his MD and PhD in Transplantation Surgery in Lund University, Sweden in 1997. He was appointed to his academic role at Westmead Hospital in 1998 and from his work in Islet transplantation he was awarded the inaugural TSANZ “Ian McKenzie Prize” in 2003. Wayne was awarded a Key Opinion Leader in Transplantation by the TTS in 2007 and also in 2010 he was awarded the Xenome Award, European Union Sixth Framework Programme, at the Nantes/Actualités/Transplantation. More recently in 2015 was awarded an Australia-Harvard Fellowship in Islet Transplantation. Wayne has a strong track record in Clinical Islet Cell Transplantation and Xenotransplantation, with many important publications. He is an active member of the International Xenotransplantation Association (IXA) being voted to council. He is also a Council Member of Scientific Program and Education Committee of the Transplantation Society of Australia and New Zealand. His main research interests are in all methods of islet cell isolation, culture and transplantation, along with animal models to assess the immunobiology of Xenograft rejection and to progress xenotransplantation to clinical therapy.