AST Presents Innovation Award to National Kidney Registry
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
On February 22, 2019, the American Society of Transplantation proudly presented the AST Innovation Award to the National Kidney Registry for their work in kidney paired exchange. Garet Hil, Joe Sinacore, and Gabriel Danovitch accepted the award at the Cutting Edge of Transplantation (CEoT) meeting in Phoenix, AZ.
The National Kidney Registry successfully operationalized a national, multi-center paired kidney exchange program with a growing network of over 90 centers. They have facilitated over 3,000 kidney paired donations since they began in 2008. This program’s successes led to reduced median wait times and improved graft survival. It also developed HLA coding standardization, implemented GPS tracking for shipped kidneys, and coordinates advance donation.
The AST Innovation Award seeks to recognize, reward, and drive innovative and novel strategies to advance the field of transplantation. Nominations for 2020 will open this summer.