Showing posts with label Czech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Czech. Show all posts

Saturday, April 16, 2022

Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of CERGE-EI: Supporting Excellence in Economic Research and Education in Post-Communist Societies

In 1990, when I was on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh (where I happily taught from 1982-1998), my colleague Jan Svenjar was instrumental in founding  a graduate program in Economics at Charles University, which soon after became  CERGE-EI, which is now about to celebrate it's 30th anniversary.  It is an appropriate time once again to be thinking about post-communist Europe.

Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of CERGE-EI: Supporting Excellence in Economic Research and Education in Post-Communist Societies

Tuesday, April 26, 2022 ● 4:00 p.m. Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73rd Street, New York City

CERGE-EI has reached a pivotal moment of change in its history. The 30th Anniversary Celebration of CERGE-EI, hosted by the CERGE-EI U.S. Foundation in conjunction with the Consulate General of the Czech Republic in New York, will be both a reflection of CERGE-EI’s impact over the last thirty years and an opportunity to lay out our vision for the future.

The war in Ukraine and its impact on the surrounding region have established that the Cold War whose ending we celebrated more than 30 years ago has revived and is heating up. Now more than ever, initiatives to raise the standards of economics education and leadership have a critical role to play in supporting national and regional stability.

For the 30th Anniversary, we are honored to be supported by a Host Committee of Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences Laureates.

Thursday, December 19, 2019

International kidney exchange between Israel and Czech Republic

The news embargo is over for last week's kidney exchange chain between Israel and the Czech Republic. (On the Israeli side, the necessary software was supplied by Itai Ashlagi, here at Stanford.)

Itai writes:
"Some background: in August 2019 there was an agreement between Israel and Czech republic to check the possibility of kidney exchanges. This was initiated by Prof. Eitan Mor from Israel  and Dr. Proniak from the Czech Republic and the whole operation was conducted by the national Israeli center for transplantation led by Dr. Tamar Askenazi and their counterpart in Czech republic."

The Israeli database contains a list of all pairs, and uses kidney exchange software donated to Israel by Itai Ashlagi and Sukolsak Sakshuwong.   Czech software was used in Prague to identify the chain.

Here's the story from News1 in Israel:

6 transplants thanks to the exchange of kidney donations between Israel and the Czech Republic

"At 5 a.m., two kidneys from two donors were removed from Beilinson Hospital. One kidney was packed in ice cooler and transported by ambulance to Ben Gurion Airport.

"About an hour after taking off from Israel, an operation to remove a Czech donor kidney was started at the Prague Hospital. At the same time, Bilinson's second kidney was transplanted, and surgery was performed to remove a kidney at Hadassah Hospital – which was transported by ambulance to Bilinson's transplant.

"At 12:30 the kidney cooler from Israel landed at the Prague airport. A vehicle was waiting by the plane and moved to the mirroring spot. At this point, Dr. Jiri Froniac, director of the Prague Transplant Program and Dr. Ashkenazi from Israel, met and exchanged documents while the coolers were [scanned].

"At the same time, the kidney from Hadassah Hospital was transferred to Beilinson for a transplant. An hour later, the Israeli plane took off from Prague back to Israel with a cooler containing the kidney from the Czech donor. The kidney came to the operating room in Hadassah and before the evening was transplanted in a patient.
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Diagram of the exchange between IKEM in the Czech Republic and Hadassah and Beilinson Hospitals in Israel
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Here's the story in the Jerusalem Post (I don't have a link yet, this is a picture):
And see this related older story about Itai Ashlagi's software:
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And here is the story in the Czech news, forwarded by Pavel Chromy.

Čeští lékaři poprvé provedli párovou výměnu ledvin s Izraelem
[Google translate: Czech doctors first performed paired kidney replacement with Israel]
"In the first half of December, doctors from the Prague Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine (IKEM) and two Israeli hospitals performed their first paired kidney exchange between the two countries. Three beneficiaries from the Czech Republic and three from Israel received the new authority. This is the first time a pair exchange has taken place with a non-European country, said IKEM director Michal Stiborek at a press conference."