Dirk J van der Windt, MD, PhD

Dirk J. van der Windt, M.D., Ph.D. is a fellowship-trained multi-organ transplant surgeon. Dr. van der Windt's clinical interests are in liver, kidney and pancreas transplantation, living kidney donation surgery, and dialysis access surgery. Although organ transplant often happens in a complex medical situation, his aim is always to make things understandable for patients and their loved ones. Dr. van der Windt believes organ transplantation is the most meaningful area of medicine to work in as it provides cure for organ failure at high and durable rates. He completed his Abdominal Transplant and Hepatobiliary Surgery Fellowship at the University of Michigan. Before that, he received his medical degree from Erasmus University in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and completed residency in General Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh.

In addition to his clinical work, Dr. van der Windt believes that the shortage of donor organs will always fuel innovative research in new ways to increase the number of transplants. He pursued advanced training in transplantation biology and received his Ph.D. degree in Transplant Immunology with honors from Erasmus University. The majority of his Ph.D. research was conducted at the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute in Pittsburgh. At MUSC, he will be part of the MUSC Lee Patterson Allen Transplant Immunobiology Lab, where he will work on developing ex-vivo treatment of the liver graft during machine perfusion. He recently received the American Society of Transplant Surgeons Natera cfDNA Faculty Research Grant, to further explore the role of cfDNA in ischemia-reperfusion injury. He received various awards for his research, including an Emerging Liver Scholar Award from the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, and a Young Investigator Award from the European Society for Organ Transplantation.

In his free time, Dr. van der Windt enjoys being with his family, traveling, and he is an avid runner. He has completed marathons in NYC, Chicago and Paris, France.