Transplant Pioneer Is Honored with Jacobson Innovation Award

Christian P. Larsen, MD, DPhil, FACS, renowned for his contributions that helped reshape the field of transplantation, is the recipient of the 2026 ACS Jacobson Innovation Award.

This prestigious honor recognizes surgeon-scientists who have made impactful contributions to surgical techniques or the advancement of surgery.

Dr. Larsen, the Carlos and Marguerite Mason Professor of Surgery in the Department of Surgery at Emory University School of Medicine and chief scientific officer of Woodruff Health Sciences and Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, Georgia, is a visionary kidney and pancreas transplant surgeon. His work includes the development of costimulation blockade, a class of antirejection therapy that significantly improves transplant outcomes.

“It’s a tremendous honor to win this award. The people who have previously been honored are icons, role models, and people I admire greatly,” said Dr. Larsen about the prestigious award.

Training to Transform Lives

After growing up in Miami, Florida, with a father who was a cardiac surgeon, Dr. Larsen earned his medical degree magna cum laude from Emory University School of Medicine. He then completed an internship at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, with Norman Shumway, MD, PhD, FACS, a heart transplant pioneer whose work piqued Dr. Larsen’s interest in the field.

Later, cross-specialty training under a nephrologist sealed his commitment to the specialty. “I saw people whose lives were transformed by transplant,” explained Dr. Larsen.

He completed his surgical residency and fellowship in transplant surgery at Emory University, as well as a doctorate in transplantation immunology at the University of Oxford in England, under Sir Peter Morris, MBBS, AC, FRS, FRCS, FACS. Dr. Larsen also completed a fellowship at Rockefeller University in New York, New York, with Ralph Steinman, MD, a trailblazing immunologist who co-discovered dendritic cells in 1973, an achievement for which he posthumously won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Steinman, Starzl, and More

Building on Dr. Steinman’s research, Dr. Larsen’s early work helped define how dendritic cells initiate T-cell responses. This research reflects a theme in Dr. Larsen’s career: close collaborations with fellow scientists and surgeons.

“My very first presentation of a paper was at the American Surgical Association meeting, which is a very unusual place to share your first paper,” he said. The session discussants included Joseph E. Murray, MD, FACS, who later won the 1990 Nobel Prize for transplant innovations, and the groundbreaking transplant surgeon Thomas E. Starzl, MD, PhD, FACS.

Drs. Starzl and Larsen eventually became friends. “I would see him all over the world. I would attend some small immunology meeting in the mountains out west, and there’s Tom Starzl, or I’d be at breakfast in Japan at a meeting, and at the next table over, there’s Tom Starzl,” recalled Dr. Larsen. “‘Come talk to me, Chris. Tell me what you’re doing.’ I was able to speak at his 80th birthday celebration. He had a profound influence on me.”

Around the same time, Dr. Larsen developed another impactful collaboration. Thomas C. Pearson, MD, DPhil, FACS, completed his surgical residency at Emory University and graduate studies at the University of Oxford concurrently with Dr. Larsen. In the UK, the two “became fast friends,” according to Dr. Larsen.

After returning to the US, Drs. Larsen and Pearson set up a laboratory together. “We said, ‘This is going to be hard enough, so let’s do it together,’ which was unusual.”

The two surgeons built the Emory Transplant Center, which is now home to one of the world’s foremost transplantation immunology centers. The center now has 200 staff members who provide patient-centered care and conduct multidisciplinary research.

Reshaping Antirejection Regimens

Both Drs. Larsen and Pearson have investigated immunological mechanisms of transplant rejection and innovated therapies based on the resulting insights. 

Specifically, they led the development of belatacept (Nulojix), the first costimulation blocker medication developed specifically for kidney transplant patients. The drug deters organ rejection by blocking costimulation of T-cells and is less toxic than calcineurin inhibitor antirejection drugs. Emory University caregivers have since treated more than 2,500 kidney transplant patients with belatacept, improving their long-term outcomes.

Despite this notable accomplishment, Dr. Larsen described clinical care as a learning curve. “In the trials, graft loss and mortality were reduced by about 40% at 7 years, and this medication significantly improved kidney function and prevented complications. It had tremendous promise. But like many new classes of drugs, there were new challenges to optimal use in clinical practice,” Dr. Larsen said.

“Much of the last couple of decades has been about learning to use this drug and making iterative changes to the protocols, using adaptive design in practice, and then de-intensifying the treatments for patients who are at low risk and intensifying for those at high risk,” he added.

With each refinement, Dr. Larsen and his team have reduced rejection rates, rescued more kidneys, and, in many cases, decreased the number of pills and healthcare visits needed. Belatacept remains a preferred therapy for kidney transplant patients today.

From Transplant Science to Personal Fight

Dr. Larsen is currently investigating the immunological foundations of organ rejection.

His work involves an ongoing alloimmunity mapping project, which is focused on major histocompatibility complex, class II, DQ alpha 1 (HLA-DQA1), which plays a key role in how patients develop antibodies against a donated organ.

Dr. Larsen’s aim is to find new ways to sustain organ viability. “If you can understand which parts of that molecule are foreign to you…there may be ways to predict risk and develop tolerance strategies so that you can perhaps silence the T-cell help for that and prevent that risk,” he explained.

He also is conducting a more personal investigation. Diagnosed 6 years ago with a melanoma in his eye (which ended his time as an operating surgeon) and later with liver metastases, Dr. Larsen has applied his expertise to his own disease. After a career focused on silencing T-cells, his circumstances “flipped it on its head,” he said. “How do I turn on my T-cell response to my tumor?”

His efforts include engaging the community he has built in research on personalized cancer vaccines. “Now, I’m a collaborator with all my cancer colleagues,” he said.

He remains in good health and engaged with colleagues, including Robert Montgomery, MD, DPhil, FACS, the 2024 Jacobson Innovation Award recipient, who he has known since their overlapping years at Oxford.

The award is made possible through a gift from Julius H. Jacobson II, MD, FACS, and his wife, Joan.

To learn more about the Jacobson Innovation Award or to submit a nomination, visit facs.org.