News & Events
2009 has been an exciting time for the transplant program. During the "State of the School" address, J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD, Dean of the Feinberg School of Medicine, announced the formation of a Comprehensive Transplant Center to house the research and training efforts of the multidisciplinary transplant programs, including adult and pediatric solid rogan and cell transplants. Michale Abecassis, MD, MBA, was named founding director of the center. Since then, members of the Division of Organ Transplantation have been actively formulating a center structure and planning a formal launch for the fall, while maintaining ongoing success in the research, education, and clinical missions of the division.
2009 is proving to be an extremely successful year for transplant research. Three major research collaboration grants from NIH are in a renewal proces, and Northwestern transplant faculty hae applied to all three and been scored very favorably in each case. Dr. Abecassis has submitted as the PI for a renewal to the A2ALL consortium, which has decided to make patient reported outcomes a key focus for the next five-year period. In collaboration with Dr. David Cella and the new Department of Medical Social Sciences, the transplant division is already conducting research related to quality of life in liver transplant donors and recipients, and so it poised to be a leader during this five-year funding period. Dr. Abecassis has also submitted a grant to lead a consortium in the CTOT renewal (Northwestern was a participating consortium site in the first round of funding). In collaboration with the Scripps Research Institute and industry, the grant focuses on genomic and proteomic markers of acute rejection and chronic kidney injury (CAN/IFTA). Last, Dixon Kaufman, MD, PhD, submitted to the renewal of the islet transplant consortium, where he has led the most active site with the greatest number of patients achieving sustained insulin independence. The division is very optimistic that with these applications as well as several other NIH and industry studies in the late part of favorable review, grants in excess of $20 million dollars of funding will be awarded in the coming months.
The division, working with the division of hepatology, has graduated its first trainee from its ACGME-approved transplant hepatology fellowship. Additionally, a candidate has been accepted to the combined training program in gastroenterology, T32-funded outcomes and health services research, and transplant Hepatology. Jonathan Fryer, MD, assumed a role as an associate program director for the general surgery residency and is enrolled in a program to gain a Master's degree in education while continuing his leaderwhip with the American Society of Transplant Surgeons in curriculum development for transplant surgery fellowships.
The division's efforts in clinical care have hit two noteworthy milestones. First, the team transplanted its 1000th liver this spring. And for the second consecutive year, Northwestern led the nation in living donor kidney transplantation, performing 166 of the procedures in 2008, more than 20 ahead of the second-largest program. The desensitization program for living donor kidney transplantation continues to achieve remarkable patient outcomes, while the living liver transplant program is actively growing and demonstrating excellent results.
