Ronald D. Guttmann MD, FRCPC, FCAHS, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1936 and received his post secondary school education at the University of Minnesota, receiving a B.A. Magna Cum Laude in 1958, and a B.S. and M.D. degree in 1961. He did his Medical Internship at the University of California San Francisco, military service in the USNR at the Tissue Bank [1], National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Medical Residency on the II & IV (Harvard) Medical Service at Boston City Hospital, and a Research & Clinical Fellowship at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital(now Brigham & Women’s Hospital) and Harvard Medical School. In 1969, he was appointed Associate in Medicine at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and permanently moved to Montreal, Canada in 1970 to become Director of the Transplantation Service at the Royal Victoria Hospital and McGill University Clinic and Associate Professor of Medicine, McGill University Faculty of Medicine. During his academic career he directed an active basic and clinical research laboratory program focused on transplantation immunobiology, immunogenetics, immunosuppression, and long term-complications of transplant patients. He also developed an interest in social and ethical issues of transplantation, organ shortage, and human rights abuses.