Article from The New York Times, The Great American Kidney Swap "Directed by the algorithm, Broussard’s kidney ended up inside a complete stranger, a 26-year-old factory worker, Oswaldo Padilla, with a 6-year-old daughter, setting off the 12-person chain that included Kim and his sister and ended with an interior designer named Verle Breschini." Each chain starts with a completely altruistic donor, someone who expects nothing in return. In the case of the San Francisco chain, that person was Zully Broussard, a 55-year-old mental-health nurse who works in a prison. Broussard lost her 21-year-old son to bone-cartilage cancer in 2001. Then, in 2013, her husband died of colon cancer. “I know what it is to want an extra hour, an extra day, with someone you love,” she told me. Directed by the algorithm, Broussard’s kidney ended up inside a complete stranger, a 26-year-old factory worker, Oswaldo Padilla, with a 6-year-old daughter, setting off the 12-person chain that included Kim and his sister and ended with an interior designer named Verle Breschini. Economists call an arrangement like this a matching market. “It is not fundamental to economic theory to assume people are selfish,” Alvin E. Roth, an economist who teaches at Stanford University, told me. Roth won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2012 for his work using game theory to design matching markets, which pair unmatched things in mutually beneficial ways — students with public schools and doctors with hospitals. In such markets, money does not decide who gets what. Instead, these transactions are more akin to elaborate courtships. The classic example of a matching market is the college-admissions process. Every year, tens of thousands of students apply to Harvard University. But just because a student wants a spot in the freshman class and can afford tuition does not mean he gets in. Harvard must also want him to attend. In the case of kidney exchange, this matchmaking happens at a microcellular level. White blood cells contain genetic markers, proteins that help our immune systems distinguish between our bodies and foreign invaders. The more closely a transplant recipient’s genetic markers match a donor’s, the more likely the body is to adopt that foreign kidney as its own rather than attacking it. All these genetic variables mean that linking unrelated donors and recipients requires the kind of computational heft humans can’t manage with pen and paper. For example, BiologicTx currently has 72 people in a computer database waiting to give or receive a kidney. Run the software to find biologically compatible matches among those 72 people, and you get 105,716 possible configurations — some long chains, others short. Some people in the database have no possible matches. Others, genetically blessed, have thousands of potential matching options within the pool. The software ranks those possible pairings based on hundreds of different immunological, genetic and demographic criteria, while also aiming to create longer chains of harder-to-match people which will ultimately result in more transplants. Full story can be found here
0 Comments
Article from RealTechToday, New device will replace needles in the process of extracting blood Surely there is no one who likes needles. There are those people that when have to extract blood, watch on the other side, or even lose consciousness. The blood extraction isn't very pleasing experience, especially when the process is done by someone who is practicing. After few unsuccessful attempts and cracked veins, the extraction will be successful, but your hand and your veins might be destroyed. To stop this ignoble procedure yet to allow analysis of the blood of patients, a company funded by DARPA created a new device that you can take out your blood without using a needle. Although it sounds counter-intuitive, but true. Using vacuum, this device is several centimeters in diameter, will “swirl” blood through microscopic capillaries that can be found on the surface of the skin. For full story, click here Article from UCSF Transplant Surgery Members of the UCSF Transplant Surgery Program participated in National Donate Life Blue & Green Day, wearing the the commemorative blue and green colors, and showing their solidarity with the cause. During this day, the public is encouraged to wear blue and green, hold events and fundraisers, and partner with local restaurants, malls, media, and community organizations in an effort to promote the success of organ, eye and tissue transplantation and the need for registered donors. According to Donate Life America, nearly 124,000 men, women and children are awaiting organ transplants in the United States.
Full story found here Story from Local 12, Man uses yard signs to look for kidney donor "The transplant is the better cure if you will and offers a better quality of life and a longer life as well." NEWTOWN, Ohio (Angenette Levy) -- Dan Becker, 45, has two energetic sons. Keeping up with them while he's on dialysis is difficult. "I can't take my kids swimming; I can't do a lot of things. I can't keep up with especially my 2 ½-year-old who's into everything," Becker said. Becker was born with a birth defect that left his kidneys damaged. Following 10 constructive surgeries, he had his first kidney transplant at age nine and a second at 35. A year ago, Dan's doctor visits showed that his kidney was starting to fail. The wait time for a kidney from a donor with an A+ blood type is nearly six years. “You don’t live as long being on dialysis. The transplant is the better cure if you will and offers a better quality of life and a longer life as well.” One day, Becker saw a post on Facebook about a person using yard signs to look for a donor. He posted the story on his page. "I jokingly said I don't think they'll let me put this up in my HOA and I just started having people saying I'll take a sign, I'll take a sign. It was just amazing," Becker recalled. The response was so positive that Becker had 60 signs made. They are posted in yards in several communities including Warren County, Anderson Township and Newtown. For full story and video, click here Article from Huff Post The Third Metric, Redefining Success Beyond Money and Power
As we spend more time at the office, we search even harder for better ways to achieve the mythical "work-life balance". From taking lunchtime walks to adjusting frustrating commutes to trading old jobs for ones we actually like, we make changes (both big and small) for the sake of our workplace happiness. But what many of us might not realize is that the biggest mood booster could be sitting in the desk chair right next to us. According to Virgin Pulse's new Labor of Love Report, which explores what employees love most about their jobs, one of the most important factors in enjoying a 9-to-5 gig is the company we keep as we do so. Nearly 40 percent of survey respondents named their co-workers as the top reason they love working for their company, with 66 percent saying those positive relationships increased their productivity and 55 percent saying they helped mitigate their on-the-job stress levels. And considering the average American worker spends 47.5 hours in the office each week, some employees may spend more time with their co-workers than with family members or friends outside of the office. For full story click here
Story from Thomasville Times-Enterprise
PITTSBURGH—Livers and other organs begin lacking oxygen the moment they are removed from the donor and may have damaged tissue by the time a transplant occurs. For the past 40 years, donor organs have been kept in “cold static preservation” — at less-than-ideal temperatures and levels of oxygenation — while being transported and prepared for transplantation. But now Paulo Fontes and his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, UPMC and the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine have developed machine-perfusion technology that preserves donor livers by pumping them with a form of cold artificial blood known as a “cell-free oxygen-carrier solution.” The process is designed to keep donor organs oxygenated throughout the entire organ-preservation process before transplantation. If successful in human clinical trials, the technology could preserve more donor livers, reduce mortality among those on the waiting list and provide them with better post-transplant outcomes. For full story, click here. Happy Holidays from the Transplant Joy Club!
AFP - Gulf News:
Rome: Pope Francis has called for more people to donate their organs in a bid to stop illegal trafficking, but spoke out against the legalisation of the organ market, Rome’s mayor said on Saturday. “The pope authorised me to say that in his view organ donation through generosity must be encouraged, but the commercial use of organs is immoral,” mayor Ignazio Marino said, after meeting with Francis on Friday. Click here to read the full story. |