Surgery is an art founded on science, or so says University of Tokyo professor Masatoshi Makuuchi, who specializes in transplants and is one of the nation's leading liver surgeons.

"What is most important is to save the lives of those who can be saved -- to get the patient back home alive," said Makuuchi, who was born into a family of surgeons and boasts not having lost a patient on whom he performed a liver operation since 1994.

As for transplants alone, 95 percent of those who received a new liver under the scalpel of the 55-year-old doctor have left the hospital alive.