December 27, 2024
(ABC) – From a pig kidney transplant to restoring genetic deafness, 2024 was a year full of medical breakthroughs. The breakthroughs include the discovery of a cause of an autoimmune disease, the development of a “game-changing” drug and potential hope … Read More
December 23, 2024
(The Columbia Dispatch) – On Dec. 13, Samantha Fledderjohann donated one of her kidneys to a stranger in need, and in the process, transformed 10 lives. The 46-year-old was the first of a record-breaking “chain” of 20 surgeries over a … Read More
December 17, 2024
(Associated Press) – An Alabama woman is recovering well after a pig kidney transplant last month that freed her from eight years of dialysis, the latest effort to save human lives with animal organs. Towana Looney is the fifth American … Read More
November 27, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – A nonprofit that collects donated organs and transports them to transplant patients around the U.S. used its airplanes for other purposes, including travel for employees and for fundraisers. Indiana Donor Network operates a fleet of small … Read More
November 26, 2024
(ABC News) – People with HIV who need a kidney or liver transplant will be able to receive an organ from a donor with HIV under a new rule announced Tuesday by U.S. health officials. Previously, such transplants could be … Read More
November 22, 2024
(MIT Technology Review) – Around 135 transplants have been performed, but it’s probably too soon to offer the procedure to trans women. A decade on, over 135 uterus transplants have been performed globally, resulting in the births of over 50 … Read More
November 20, 2024
(KFF Health News) – Checking the “donor” box on a driver’s license application, people may picture their heart, kidneys, or other organs saving another person’s life should the worst happen. They are less likely to consider that tissues — corneas, … Read More
November 14, 2024
(Gizmodo) – Doctors say that Richard Slayman’s body did not reject a pig kidney modified to become more compatible with human biology. A historic medical accomplishment that ended in tragedy may yet have a silver lining. Doctors say that Richard … Read More
November 13, 2024
(Wired) – San Francisco–based Ossium Health has carried out three transplants for cancer patients using stem cells from deceased donors’ bone marrow in recent months. A donor must have closely matched genes for human leukocyte antigens, or HLA, to be … Read More
November 6, 2024
Journal of Medical Ethics (vol. 50, no. 11, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
November 1, 2024
The New England Journal of Medicine (vol. 391, no. 15, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
October 30, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – Tissue-engineering techniques are in the works to regrow heart muscle after a heart attack and repair lungs and other organs It is hard to mend a broken heart, but in a few years doctors might be … Read More
October 28, 2024
(Associated Press) – Transplant experts are seeing a spike in people revoking organ donor registrations, their confidence shaken by reports that organs were nearly retrieved from a Kentucky man mistakenly declared dead. It happened in 2021 and while details are … Read More
October 17, 2024
(NPR) – Martin was not assigned to the operating room that day, but she says she thought she might get drafted. So she started to review case notes from earlier in the day. She became alarmed when she read that … Read More
October 17, 2024
(Associated Press) – People with HIV can safely receive donated kidneys from deceased donors with the virus, according to a large study that comes as the U.S. government moves to expand the practice. That could shorten the wait for organs … Read More
September 26, 2024
(Chicago Sun Times) – After facing colorectal cancer for nearly eight years, Mandy Wilk got a double-lung transplant in June at Northwestern. She has no signs of cancer in her body and has not needed further cancer treatments. At that … Read More
September 20, 2024
(HHS Press Release) – Today, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) at the Department of Health and Hunan Services (HHS) announced the first ever multi-vendor contract awards to modernize the nation’s organ transplant system to improve transparency, performance, governance, … Read More
September 16, 2024
(The Guardian) – As a legal academic, I have been investigating the global trade in organs since 2014. Over the past 10 years, I have spoken to 43 people from Sudan, South Sudan and Eritrea who sold a kidney out … Read More
September 3, 2024
(NBC News) – Four people have received hearts or kidneys from pigs. Some of their relatives recount a roller coaster of hope and uncertainty. Three other patients have followed in Bennett Sr.’s footsteps and received pig organs, most recently a … Read More
August 30, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – Venture capitalist Tristan Mace wants to improve the way organs are donated and how recipients fare Mace needed a heart transplant. His desperate condition catapulted him to the top of the transplant list, and he got a … Read More
August 28, 2024
(ABC News) – People who volunteer to donate a kidney face an even lower risk of death from the operation than doctors have long thought, researchers reported Wednesday. The study tracked 30 years of living kidney donation and found that … Read More
August 26, 2024
(NPR) – More than 90,000 people in the U.S. are waiting for a kidney transplant. But an ongoing kidney shortage means a thousand people a month are removed from the waitlist, either because they die while waiting for a kidney … Read More
August 22, 2024
(Vox) – For some time now, independent analysts and investigative reporters have argued that OPOs [Organ Procurement Organizations] are underusing deceased donor organs by the tens of thousands. One report from 2019 estimated that every year 28,000 usable organs (mostly … Read More
August 19, 2024
(Axios) – Women who received uterus transplants have delivered more than 70 infants worldwide since the first successful transplant in 2011, with 20 cases at a Texas medical center showing about the same success rate as with natural wombs, per … Read More
August 15, 2024
The New England Journal of Medicine (vol. 390, no. 24, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include: