Gabriel Loor MD, FACC 
Surgical Director, Lung Transplant Program
Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center
Houston, TX

Dr. Gabriel Loor specializes in the clinical evaluation and surgical management of patients with advanced cardiothoracic disease including coronary artery, aortic and valvular heart disease. Dr. Loor has a special interest in advanced heart and lung failure and is the surgical director of the Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center Lung Transplantation Program. Dr. Loor received his cardiac surgical and transplant training at Cleveland Clinic. He spent several years at the University of Minnesota as assistant professor in cardiac surgery and director of the lung transplant program. There he significantly increased the volume and quality of lung transplantation through donor utilization, reduction of patient wait list times and adoption of various innovations. In addition, he was responsible for several quality improvement initiatives including building the aortic and adult congenital surgery practice. His research interests include improved donor utilization and maximizing recipient outcomes. He is the national principal investigator on several trials using ex vivo lung perfusion platforms to increase donor yield and quality. He is credited with the first “breathing lung transplantation” in the Midwest performed in 2014. His translational lab focuses on the use of this technology to improve the quality and quantity of potential lung transplants. Dr. Loor has published several key papers on prolonged preservation of donor organs with an emphasis on reducing ischemic injury and the inflammatory response. He has also published several articles on blood conservation, safety checklists and surgical outcomes after adult cardiac surgery.

Pablo G. Sanchez MD, PhD
Thoracic Surgeon
Associate Director, Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation
UW Medicine
Harborview Medical Center
Seattle, WA
 
Dr. Sanchez is a Thoracic Surgeon at the University of Washington Medical Center and the Associate Director of the Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) program at Harborview Medical Center. He is also a member of the lung transplant team at UW.

Dr. Sanchez earned his M.D. from the University of Cordoba in Argentina. He trained as a Thoracic Surgeon in Porto Alegre-Brazil and underwent fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Maryland. Before joining the University of Washington he was a member of the Cardiothoracic transplantation and ECMO team at the University of Maryland in Baltimore