Speaker: – Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network
Speaker: – University of Alabama at Birmingham
Speaker: – Duke University
Speaker: – NYU Langone Health
Moderator: – SWID
Moderator: – NYU Langone | Transplant Institute
Co-Chair: – University of Alberta
Co-Chair: – University of Wisconsin HLA Laboratory
Co-Chair: – University of British Columbia
Co-Chair: – Dalhousie University
Xenotransplantation, long regarded as the perpetual future of organ transplantation, has recently undergone a notable resurgence. In the past five years, we have seen the clinical application of heart and kidney xenografts in human recipients. If successful, this approach has the potential to not only alleviate the critical shortage of transplantable organs but also present new challenges and opportunities for the transplantation and histocompatibility communities. Key among these challenges is determining how to select and effectively match patients with genetically engineered pig donors. In this session, we will examine the clinical need for xenotransplantation, the complexities and challenges of using pigs as organ donors, current strategies for assessing histocompatibility in the context of xenotransplantation, and future directions for xenocompatibility testing.
