Dr. Sapana Verma, MD, PhD, is an internationally trained liver transplant surgeon and academic researcher with over a decade of experience in hepatobiliary and transplant surgery across Nepal, India, Japan, Kazakhstan, and the United States. She completed her advanced surgical training in hepatobiliary and transplant surgery in Nepal and at Hiroshima University, Japan, followed by fellowship training in HPB and liver transplantation at the Center for Liver and Biliary Sciences, New Delhi—one of the highest-volume living donor liver transplant centers globally. She also completed advanced pediatric liver transplant training at the National Center for Child Health and Development (NCCHD), Tokyo, Japan, a leading global center in pediatric transplantation.

Dr. Verma has extensive expertise in both adult and pediatric liver transplantation, including living donor transplantation on both donor and recipient sides, complex vascular reconstruction, small-for-size graft optimization, and ABO-incompatible transplantation. She has played a key role in establishing and advancing liver transplant programs in resource-limited settings, particularly contributing to the development of multidisciplinary transplant services in Nepal and supporting pediatric transplant initiatives internationally.

She earned her PhD in transplant immunology from Hiroshima University, with research focused on immunogenetics and post-transplant outcomes. She has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and has received multiple prestigious awards, including several Young Investigator Awards from the International Liver Transplantation Society (ILTS) and the American Transplant Congress (ATC), as well as the ILTS Rising Star Award.

Dr.Verma is currently working in the Division of Transplantation at Cleveland Clinic, where her work focuses on advancing organ preservation strategies, including machine perfusion, and evaluating their impact on graft function and oncologic outcomes, particularly in pediatric and high-risk transplant populations.