The Sweetest Gift is headed by Patricia Scheetz, herself both a chronic illness warrior and transplant recipient, having received a kidney and pancreas transplant in 2011 after battling with type 1 diabetes since birth and many of the disease’s insidious complications since her early 20’s.
Patricia is a qualified pastry chef, and discovered her passion for baking whilst recovering from her transplant surgery, fast forward several years and this passion catapulted Patricia onto Australian TV as a contestant in 2016 on Zumbo’s Just Desserts, which now airs on Netflix.
Discovering her life’s purpose to help people in similar situations to her own came after realizing that her dream of running her own dessert restaurant would be that much sweeter if she could support people just like herself, so that they didn’t have to go through the same employment struggles that she had been forced to, and so The Sweetest Gift was born.
Sharyn Kreitzer has 25 years of experience in the transplant field in both the private sector and VA programs. She developed a special interest in living kidney donation and has devoted her career to help increase access to living kidney transplants particularly for underserved communities.
In 2015, Sharyn helped launch the 7th kidney transplant program within the VA Healthcare System. While there, she realized the tremendous potential to tap into a vast military support system to launch a veteran-centric organ donor awareness program.
In 2020 Sharyn created Donor Outreach for Veterans, Corps (DOVE) a nonprofit organization with a mission to facilitate matching altruistic donors with Veterans awaiting transplant in the United States.
Sharyn’s clinical skills as a former transplant social worker, combined with her many years of experience in outreach, program development and administration has enabled DOVE to thrive in its first two years and has saved the lives of 21 Veterans since its inception.
Sharyn runs DOVE out of her home in Montclair, NJ where she lives with her partner, Thomas, her children, Nathan and Naomi, and their Labrador Retriever, Scout. In the last month, Sharyn has become a living kidney donor. She couldn’t be more proud to join this tremendously special group of people.
Dr. Scalea is a multi-organ transplant surgeon, innovator, and entrepreneur dedicated to saving lives. He is a professor of surgery and immunology and thought leader in transplantation. As a high-energy healthcare leader, he has a passion for building large, empowered teams that seek to dream big, improve efficiency, and exceed goals.
As an entrepreneur, Dr. Scalea co-founded 2 companies: MediGO, a healthcare supply chain technology company and MissionGO, an unmanned aviation and services organization. These rapidly growing ventures won the Thomas Edison award and MediGO was recognized by FAST Company magazine as a World Changing Idea.
Surgically, Dr. Scalea has worked with, built, and led some of largest organ transplant programs in the country. He is presently the director of kidney transplantation at MUSC, which performs 400+ kidney transplants per year. He has been nationally recognized for the highest quality pancreas transplant program in the United States, while also driving the highest volumes. He is presently Vice Chair of surgery where he helps faculty members understand the commercial potential of surgical innovations.
Within transplantation, Dr. Scalea and his quality teams are working hard to help centers scale operative volumes without sacrificing quality, by leveraging technology to enhance the peri-transplant workflow. Alongside bioinformatics experts, his quality team efforts are directed toward building tools that automate patient medical record analysis to instantly generate lists of patients who could be at risk for graft failure, tools for bidirectional patient communication, and enhanced patient education strategies.
Dr. Scalea is the Executive Medical Director for MUSC Health Solutions, an organization that assesses and commercializes internal technologies as well as early stage external technologies. In this role, Dr. Scalea helps guide MUSC Health Innovation strategic investments, and he guides technology development and implementation. Current investment activities include innovations in mobile-first patient-centered telehealth platforms, sleep science innovations, various MedTech concepts, and a technology-leveraged concierge surgical care model for elite athletes.
Dr. Scalea has led multiple Innovation and scientific ventures including the conceptualization, design, and development of the first platforms for monitoring and moving human organs. He envisioned, built tech for, patented, and subsequently performed, the first-ever transplant of a human organ moved by drone. This innovation was featured in the NYT, Fox, CNN, WSJ, JAMA-Surgery, and other scientific outlets. The media around this event went viral, generating more than 10M views in <48 hours, and with a PR reach touching an estimated 1 B people.
Beyond commercialization, Dr. Scalea is an NIH-funded director of a translational immunology laboratory and has published more than 80 peer-reviewed articles. Beyond studying organ logistics, Dr. Scalea is interested in eliminating the needs for anti-rejection drugs in transplant patients using novel fusion proteins which leverage the suppressive capacity of MDSCs.
Dr. Scalea is a loving father and husband who loves to paint and sail when he is not operating.
Genevieve C. Springer has a B.S. in Education, a Minor in Violin performance; a M.S. in Leadership and Policy from Vanderbilt University; and is now in the dissertation phase of her doctoral degree in Public and International Affairs. Her research interests hover at the intersection of democratic accountability, justice, public agency performance, and equitable health and social policy across regions. Professionally, she has served as project manager at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, an educator in both public and private schools teaching and designing interventions for at-risk youth, a researcher, humanitarian, and team leader. Grateful to be raised in a supportive close-knit family of creative entrepreneurial spirits. Genevieve in recent years has become increasingly and unapologetically driven to pursue goals that only call upon those skills and strengths meaningfully supported by her natural inclinations to create innovative lifesaving solutions. Genevieve’s most cherished leisure time is spent with her son Mateo, parents Terry and Bob, and Pitbull Susie in Chapel Hill, N.C.
Driving visions, actions, impact, and collaborations within biotech & life science to discover new opportunities and to develop better treatment opportunities. Entrepreneur, focusing on helping transplant patients live their life again. Synklino strives to provide rapid relief as well as to improve long term survival for transplant recipients by providing fast and safe eradication of cytomegalovirus (CMV) infections. Synklino’s drug candidate SYN002 efficiently eliminates both lytic as well as latently infected cells, and thereby potently inhibits viral replication and eradicates the virus – simply taking CMV out of the equation for the transplant recipient.
“I am always working to build and develop the strongest team, for what we are about to accomplish – focusing on our ability to execute our ambitious plans. At the same time relations to people, and working with committed, courageous, and skilled people is the greatest single motivating factor”.
Rory is a Preclinical Scientist at Ochre Bio’s New York based lab, where he focuses on deep phenotyping perfused human livers. A physiologist by training, Rory’s PhD research involved identifying key proteins involved in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease development. This led him to a postdoc at the National Cancer Institute, studying how hepatic mitochondrial dynamics are perturbed during the onset of liver disease. Rory originally hails from Galway in Ireland, before coming to the US for graduate school in 2014 to complete his MS at Central Michigan University, and PhD at the University of Missouri.
Passionate. Unique. Loyal. Resilient. These words are commonly used to describe Sharron S. Rouse. Sharron is an experienced leader with a demonstrated history of working in the education and nonprofit industries. She is skilled in program coordination, leadership, community outreach, and curriculum development. Sharron is a strong educational professional with an Administrator certification focused in Educational Leadership and Administration.
A native of the Washington, DC Metropolitan area, she has dedicated her life to influencing the world as a kidney disease, dialysis, and now transplant survivor. Sharron actively shares her story to bring hope and healing to anyone facing difficult circumstances in life. To expand the scope of her reach, Sharron founded Kindness for Kidneys International, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating, encouraging, and empowering kidney warriors and their families. Sharron lives in Maryland with her husband Shawn and daughter Kyla.
Chet Alan Bennett aka Chef Bennet; Licensed Cosmetologist; School Owner; Salon Owner; Radio Host; Conference Host; Instructor; Motivational Speaker; Author; Executive Producer; and Founder of a non-profit. These are some of the many titles that Mr. Chet A. Bennett has held over the years while being a successful businessman. He is a proud graduate of Morehouse College with a BA in Religion and a Master’s Degree in Educational Administration and Supervision from Howard University. From holding contracts for the Correctional Corporation of America and the DC Department of Corrections, to coordinating conferences, producing the documentary, “Don’t Put Down the Clippers,” writing the book “My Business is the Beauty Business,” and owning 6 salons, two daycare centers, and a beauty school, Mr. Bennett has achieved great heights in all his endeavors. Although he has held a strong role in the beauty industry for over 29 years, C. Alan Bennett has been cooking and catering since 1992.
It wasn’t until he received a kidney transplant that he decided to spend the rest of his life dedicated to the culinary industry. He created The C. Alan Foundation to not only bring awareness to the kidney disease community, but to educate the community on how to create a healthy lifestyle. Under the foundation, The Kidney Kafe’ with Chef Benne’, and the Kidney Conversations Talk Show was created. C. Alan has become a sought-after caterer at the Bennett Career Institute, The Kidney Kafe Pop-ups; a personal Chef; an inspiring Chef host on a progressive cooking show that airs on The Urban Television Network; his YouTube channel, and his website kidney-kafe.com.
He is now partnering with Access Housing Inc., a Southeast DC Veteran’s Service Center catering meals for the homeless, and is set to air his cooking show this spring on DCTV. He also has a book about a healthy eating lifestyle coming out in April “From the Ground to the Gut.” Chef Benne’ started the Kidney Kafe Garden in Washington DC’s most economically challenged community growing spices and sustainable food for the local area. There is much more to come from C. Alan Bennett, as his impact in the culinary community has just begun.
Tina is 43 years old, was born with the genetic disease cystic fibrosis and received a double lung transplant in 2014. Tina has worked in her passion of bodymind health and wellness for over 20 years helping hundreds of people with various conditions. She specialises now in Somatic Movement and Embodiment for trauma, anxiety and stress due to living with chronic illness, cancer or organ transplant. Tina facilitates online group courses, working with registered charities and other organisations and does one-on-one coaching for empowering individuals to understand how their bodymind is affected by their health and medical experiences, and how they can improve their resilience, emotional balance, anxiety and traumatic stress symptoms through a body based approach, whilst incrementally improving their relationship with their body, whatever their physical condition.
Tina has studied and qualified in Natural Nutrition, Regression Therapy, Yoga, Body Mind Centering, and is in continuing studies for Body Mind Psychotherapy, Embodiment and Somatic Trauma Therapy.
Linda has spent over 20 years in the healthcare industry working with several leading technology companies. She has used her experience, leadership and a collaborative approach to human and health services to work alongside her clients to deliver innovative digital health solutions to patients. As a member of the leadership team at Mozzaz, Linda has been instrumental in the company’s growth and mission to bring digital health to individuals with complex care needs by establishing relationships with health plans and providers. Linda is also active with community mental health and social services and has served as board member in non-profit organizations dealing with complex care healthcare delivery.
Since joining Mozzaz in 2013, Linda has played many roles including VP of Client Success, demonstrating her commitment and dedication to helping healthcare providers deliver services that maximize their clients’ abilities to live independently and to support them on their journey. Additionally, Linda serves as VP of Strategic Partnerships, helping partners like CVS Health bring virtual care to their members to improve engagement and promote better outcomes across the populations they serve. Linda also works closely with Mozzaz strategic partners like Microsoft, leveraging the channel and her relationships to foster account expansion in new LOB areas.