kidney transplant made in response to a personal request from the patient himself (along with the donor, his father), who had been turned down by other Italian transplant centres. A clinical success, the operation sparked an institutional dispute in Italy at the time. In 2002 Marino moved to Philadelphia at the Thomas Jefferson University. Ignazio Marino is the recipients of several international medical awards, including the 2010 Award for contributions to the fight against AIDS; Honorary Doctor of Science degree (2015) at the Thomas Jefferson University; the Longmire Professorship of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the Longmire Surgical Society Society. Marino has personally performed over 650 transplants. Marino delivered more than 700 international scientific lectures and is the author of over 500 peer-review articles and has authored several scientific books. In 2005 he published a book with Einaudi ("Le Vele" series) entitled Credere e curare ("Treating and Believing"); the book deals with the medical profession and the influence that faith, seen as a religious creed but also as compassion, solidarity, and empathy towards all human beings, has upon it. In 2005 he founded Imagine ONLUS, an international non-profit organization engaged in international solidarity activities with special regard to health issues. He is also a member of the Editorial Board of Transplantation, Liver Transplantation, Clinical Transplantation, and 9 other international scientific journals. Ignazio Marino is Professor of Surgery at the Thomas Jefferson University, School of Medicine, and, from 2020, Executive Vice President of Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health in Philadelphia. In 2020, Marino was appointed Member of the Board of Directors of the Philadelphia International Medicine. Political career Entry into politics A good friend of Massimo D'Alema, Marino was persuaded by him to enter into politics as an independent candidate with the Democrats of the Left in the 2006 general elections, and was elected as a Senator. On June 6, 2006, Marino was elected Chair of the Health Committee of the Senate of the Republic (Italy). Among the main achievements of Senator Marino as Chair of the Health Committee: - a national law was proposed and approved to manage and reduce patients' waiting list time and to establish new rules for public/private physicians' practice in Italian National Health Care System hospitals; - a law proposal on living will that started a national debate; - an international meeting on living will from the clinical, bioethical and religious