Paulo Martins, MD,PhD,FACS,FAST,FEBS

About Paulo Martins

Dr. Paulo Martins is an accomplished transplant surgeon specializing in abdominal transplant operations, including liver, pancreas, and kidney transplants. He is also proficient in general and hepatobiliary surgery, providing comprehensive care for patients before and after surgery. Dr. Martins is an Associate Professor of Surgery.

Dr. Martins graduated from medical school in Brazil, where he was ranked first in his class. He earned his doctorate of medicine from the Federal University of Bahia. He completed his residency training in general surgery at the same institution. He finished his Ph.D. in transplant immunology at the University of Berlin-Germany in 2005 with “Summa cum Laude.” He completed a post-doc research fellowship at Harvard University, followed by a clinical transplant fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 2015, he obtained American citizenship based on merit- EB1 National interest waiver.

From 2013 to 2024, Dr. Martins worked as a transplant surgeon and was the lead of the transplant surgery lab at the University of Massachusetts. During his career, he has obtained several research awards, including the International Liver Transplant Society (ILTS) rising star award, ILTS basic science award, American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) vanguard award, ASTS rising star and ASTS midlevel award, American Society of Transplantation (AST) basic science award, an American Association of the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) grant, the Portuguese-American Scientific leadership award, and the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society award. He has over 170 peer-reviewed publications with over 5,800 citations, and an H-index of 34. Five of his papers in 2022 were on journal cover pages. For the last four years Dr. Martins was in the " World's Top 2% Scientists" University of Stanford/Eselvier list. He is the editor of two textbooks and the author of over 20 book chapters. He is an associate editor of the journal “Artificial Organs” and serves on the editorial and review boards of over 10 journals, grant review committees, and medical societies. Additionally, he was recently included in the Who is Who in America list. Dr. Martins has been working on organ preservation for over 25 years, focusing specifically on machine perfusion preservation. He holds an international patent on siRNA treatment for gene modulation during organ machine perfusion.

Besides his basic science focus, Dr. Martins has made a significant impact at both national and international levels regarding transplant access equity. He has delivered several lectures and published academic peer-reviewed articles in this area, including a position statement from the European Society of Transplantation. He is the past chair of the UNOS Minority Affairs Committee and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons Diversity Committee. During his term as the chair of the UNOS/OPTN Minority Affairs Committee, he spearheaded the proposal to eliminate the eGFR race coefficient in kidney transplant allocation, leading to a national policy change to remove barriers for African American recipients who have been historically disadvantaged on the waitlist. Dr. Martins’ work on health equity has been featured in several media outlets, including USA Today and Scripps TV. Based on this work, he received an ASTS award and was nominated by the dean of the University of Massachusetts for the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society award.