Professor Xavier Rogiers (1956-2019) was a pioneering Belgian transplant surgeon renowned for his contributions to liver transplantation, particularly in pediatric care, and for advancing surgical techniques such as split-liver and living-donor transplantation.

Born on November 1, 1956, in Ypres, West Flanders, Rogiers pursued his medical studies at the Catholic University of Leuven, earning his doctorate magna cum laude in 1982. His surgical training included fellowships in hepatobiliary and transplant surgery across esteemed institutions in Paris, Glasgow, London, and Chicago.

In 1989, Rogiers participated in one of the earliest living-donor liver transplants in Chicago. He later joined the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, where he became Director of the Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery and Visceral Transplantation. There, he performed groundbreaking procedures, including the first in-situ split-liver transplantation in 1994 and the first living-donor liver transplants in Oklahoma and Gothenburg.

In 2006, Rogiers returned to Belgium to assume the chair of Transplantation Surgery at Ghent University and became Head of the Transplant Center at UZ Gent He was instrumental in developing. Belgium's national pediatric liver transplantation program and played a key role in establishing similar programs internationally, including in Riyadh.

Professor Rogiers held leadership positions in several professional organizations, including serving as Vice President of Eurotransplant and as Secretary General of the European-African Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association (E-AHPBA). He was also a founding member of the UEMS divisions of Transplant Surgery and HPB Surgery.

Throughout his career, he authored numerous peer-reviewed articles and contributed to several influential textbooks, notably editing the volume "Split-Liver Transplantation."

Professor Rogiers passed away on November 20, 2019, at the age of 63. His legacy continues through the countless surgeons he mentored and the lives improved by his contributions to transplant medicine.