In Memoriam of Dr. Murray I. Sheldon

The kidney community remembers the life and contributions of one of our most respected patient advocates, public servants, and champions for innovative care.

Dr. Murray Sheldon received his medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1975, followed by training in cardiothoracic surgery at the Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center in New York. After practicing cardiac, thoracic, and vascular surgery in Northern California for over 20 years, he entered the medical device industry, lending his expert consultative services and support to numerous innovative start-up medical development firms. The valuable advice he offered combined both his practical experience from the operating room as well as his extensive insights on unmet patient needs and the need for greater patient choice and access to new technologies.

From 2003 to 2009, Dr. Sheldon was the medical director for Arbor Surgical Technologies, which developed a unique two-piece, sutureless aortic valve for clinical aortic valve replacement that was sold to Medtronic. Subsequently, he became the medical director for the minimally invasive surgical program at BioVentrix, Inc. and developed a catheter-based procedure for surgical ventricular reconstruction for heart failure patients. Each of these endeavors embodied his goal of lowering the patient comorbidity burdens associated with disease management.

In 2013 Dr. Sheldon was planning to retire and enjoy his beautiful home in California when he was invited to join the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Although initially uncertain about this, his mentor Professor Thomas J. Fogarty, famous for inventing the embolectomy (Fogarty balloon) catheter, persuaded him to accept the job, stating that “it was his citizen duty” to embrace the opportunity of public service for America.

And so, Dr. Sheldon moved to Washington, DC, and became the FDA-Center for Devices and Radiological Health's Associate Director for Technology and Innovation. He oversaw the Center's initiative to proactively facilitate medical device innovation to address unmet public health needs and worked hard to align what is traditionally done at FDA with that extra something (the Murray factor if you will) that is always needed for true innovation within the medical device ecosystem. Within the International Medical Device Regulators Forum, Dr. Sheldon energetically worked with FDA staff, patient organizations, the medical device industry, the clinical community, and other stakeholders on ways to bring innovative medical devices into the marketplace to better serve the needs of patients.

At the FDA, his mandate was to question status quo care and identify ways to reduce the red tape that impeded market entry for new products. Consistent with the FDA mission, and aided by the keen eye of his own practical experience, he actively advanced this mission without ever lowering the patient safety bar. In the midst of these efforts, opposing voices sometimes arose, with demands to justify his actions. In such instances, Dr. Sheldon would say: “If we accept further delay, what do we tell the patients and families whose lives and livelihoods depend on our decisions.”

Dr. Sheldon also led the Medical Device Payer Communication Task Force, identifying and implementing methods to streamline the path from FDA approval to reimbursement. He played a pivotal role in facilitating the creation of the Kidney Health Technology Roadmap for Innovative Approaches to Renal Replacement Therapy (Figure 1) published in 2018¹ and was instrumental in shaping the KidneyX Prize competition.

Figure 1.

Dr. Murray Sheldon (third from the left) at the handout ceremony of the printed version of the KHI Technology Roadmap for Innovative Approaches to Renal Replacement Therapy booklet in Washington, DC, on May 30, 2019. Photograph courtesy of Veerle Reumers, Interuniversitair Micro-Elektronica Centrum. KHI, Kidney Health Initiative.

In 2020 he coauthored an article containing recommendations for an update of the Kidney Health Initiative roadmap and suggestions on how an international ecosystem to realize such a roadmap might be put together.² He also coauthored a scientific article on how regulatory science, international standardization, and inclusion of patient insight data could boost overall innovation in KRT.³ Dr. Sheldon was a remarkable man who truly served his country (and all mankind) in an exceptional way. This was also acknowledged during ASN Kidney Week 2019, when Dr. Sheldon received the ASN President's Medal⁴ for “providing unprecedented attention and action related to kidney care, research, and innovation within the administration.”

Even while he was fighting two types of cancer simultaneously, Dr. Sheldon still kept on planning ways to “connect the silos” (as he called it). Together with the American Association of Kidney Patients (AAKP) and the European Kidney Patients Foundation, he helped the Willem Kolff Foundation organize a world summit of artificial kidney innovators on June 24, 2025 in Kampen, The Netherlands, the site of Dr. Kolff's first working hemodialysis machine. On this historic occasion, Dr. Sheldon delivered a video address that deeply moved all the attendees. The Willem Kolff Foundation dedicated their book about this historic event to the memory of Dr. Sheldon. Also in June 2025, AAKP President Edward Hickey, III awarded the AAKP President's Award for Courageous Advocacy on Behalf of Kidney Patients Worldwide to Dr. Sheldon in recognition of his commitment, passion, and impatience to end the high mortality and morbidity status quo that characterizes kidney care.

Over and above his science and his passion to change things for the better for patients with kidney disease globally, Murray was just a wonderful human being, kind, decent, and someone that you would be proud to call your friend—and of course being Murray's friend meant that you would almost certainly be pulled into advocating for better care for patients, which was his perennial call to action.

Murray Sheldon was an immigrant’s child. If his father would not have made the wise and courageous decision to leave almost all his possessions behind and escape from Nazi Germany to the United States, then he would not have been born. He was proud of his American citizenship, and his country can be very proud of him and his service. We deeply mourn his departure from this world and wish strength to his wife Christine, his children Derek, Kendra, and Meredith, as well as to all his family, friends, and loved ones.

The kidney patient community, the medical device community, and the regulatory and standardization community all owe him a huge debt of gratitude. We, in turn, will continue to honor his memory and work to realize his vision of more readily available and innovative patient-centered KRTs for kidney patients across the globe.

Thank you Murray for your passion, your leadership, and your friendship. Your memory will remain a blessing to us all.

Disclosures

Disclosure forms, as provided by each author, are available with the online version of the article at http://links.lww.com/JSN/F824.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: Stephen Ash, Paul Conway, Edward Hickey, Jonathan Himmelfarb, Andrew Lo, Glenda Roberts, Prabir Roy-Chaudhury, Shuvo Roy, Fokko Wieringa.

Methodology: Prabir Roy-Chaudhury, Fokko Wieringa.

Project administration: Fokko Wieringa.

Resources: Prabir Roy-Chaudhury.

Supervision: Prabir Roy-Chaudhury, Fokko Wieringa.

Visualization: Prabir Roy-Chaudhury, Fokko Wieringa.

Writing – original draft: Prabir Roy-Chaudhury, Fokko Wieringa.

Writing – review & editing: Stephen Ash, Paul Conway, Edward Hickey, Jonathan Himmelfarb, Andrew Lo, Glenda Roberts, Prabir Roy-Chaudhury, Shuvo Roy, Fokko Wieringa.

Funding

None.