Most Interesting People 2015: Koji Hashimoto

WHY HE'S INTERESTING: Hashimoto left his native Japan in 2006 to accept an abdominal multiorgan transplant fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic. He's spent the last nine years researching the practice of splitting a donor liver for two recipients — a procedure that can save two lives with one precious organ. Results of his study, published in the July American Journal of Transplantation, indicate a 70 percent survival rate for split-liver transplant recipients after five years, the same as for whole-liver transplant counterparts.

THE POWER OF READING: Hashimoto's interest in medicine was sparked by a trip to a bookstore in his hometown of Fukuoka, on Japan's southernmost island of Kyushu, when he was a preschooler. His mother asked him to pick out a book to purchase. "I picked the book, The Human Body. It was for kids, with a bunch of pictures of the human body — the brain, stomach, liver, small bowel, kidneys, muscle and skin, everything. I was reading that book every day, every moment." He attributes that fascination to a sort of predestination. "I was born to be a doctor."

THE INCREDIBLE LIVER: Hashimoto decided to become a transplant surgeon after reading another book, this one on the first living-donor liver transplant performed in Japan, during his first year at Kyushu University medical school. The procedure transplants a piece of liver harvested from a compatible living donor, often the only option in a nation where there are few brain-dead donors. "Both pieces can regenerate to about the same [original] size. It's an amazing organ. Transplant sounded right for me."

ON THE CUTTING EDGE: The Cleveland Clinic is one of the few medical centers actively performing the split-liver transplant. Hashimoto explains that it utilizes the same challenging techniques as the living-donor transplant by having to divide all the blood vessels and bile ducts. "You have to have three separate [surgical] teams at the same time because you have two patients. So that's why many centers, many surgeons, don't want to do it."

FAMILY GUY: When Hashimoto isn't at the hospital, he likes to hang out at home, watching movies and chatting with his wife and two daughters, ages 12 and 9. "If I have the time, I sleep."

CITY LIFE: Some of Hashimoto's favorite things about Northeast Ohio are the Cleveland Clinic, the Cleveland Cavaliers and — believe it or not — the weather. "The winter is cold, but the snow is beautiful. In the spring and the fall, it's very beautiful too."