José Medina Pestana, MD, Ph.D., FRCS, is a Full Professor of Nephrology and Head of the Renal Transplant Division at the Federal University of São Paulo. Currently, he is member of the Council of The Transplant society (TTS) and past President of the Brazilian Organ Transplant Association and the "STALyC" in Latin America. He had pos-doc clinical activities at Cleveland clinic under the supervision of Prof. William Brown and experimental activities at Oxford University under Prof. Peter Morris’s supervision. He was honored to be the Joseph Murray Harvard Medical School visiting professor in 2012 and became one of the 100 members of the Brazilian Academy of Medicine. He has worked on developing organ transplantation programs in every Brazilian state and other countries, like Peru, Nigeria, and Ethiopia. His efforts envisioned the potential to increase the number of kidney transplants, turning the Hospital do Rim, the world's largest public transplant center, performing over 900 transplants annually, with more than 20,000 in the last 25 years. His extensive academic activities include more than 480 peer-reviewed publications, the mentorship of undergraduate socially disadvantaged students and postgraduate students that are spread in every Brazilian state. His last challenge was facing the COVID-19 pandemic, leading the São Paulo state committee to define and apply public health policies to the general population, particularly to transplanted patients.