Today the National Kidney Registry was presented with the 2019 American Society of Transplantation Innovation Award at the Cutting Edge of Transplantation Summit in Phoenix, Arizona.
The AST Innovation Award was created to showcase a project or program that exemplifies the spirit of innovation on which organ transplantation was founded. The National Kidney Registry has facilitated 3,170 paired exchange transplants since it was founded in 2007 and is facilitating over 70% of the living donor transplants for the most difficult to match patients in the United States.
“The reason AST developed the Innovation Award is to reward and drive novel ideas in transplantation. This field was founded on the spirit of innovation and experimentation. We want to showcase successes in transplant innovation with this award,” said Dr. Dianne McKay, President of the AST.
“We are honored to be presented with the AST Innovation Award and offer a heartfelt thank you to our world-renowned members of our medical board for their expertise and enthusiasm for making transplantation possible for all patients,” said Garet Hil, Founder and CEO of the National Kidney Registry. “Without such an outstanding medical board, many of the innovations NKR has introduced to help kidney patients would not have seen the light of day.”
“The National Kidney Registry has revolutionized the practice of living kidney donation in the United States,” said Gabe Danovitch, Professor of Medicine and Medical Director of the UCLA Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Program. UCLA has completed 285 paired exchange transplants facilitated by the National Kidney Registry over the past 10 years.
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