Registration for the Fellows Symposium on Transplantation is now open! This comprehensive program is designed for clinical fellows and residents, surgical fellows, research fellows, pharmacists, and other trainees planning a career in transplantation medicine, surgery, or research.

Fellows, residents, trainees, and pharmacists who meet the eligibility criteria can apply for a travel grant. Fellows and those who do not meet the travel grant criteria may register as general attendees. Medical students are also welcome to attend.

Immerse yourself in the latest research and breakthroughs in the field of transplantation at WTC 2025, hosted in the dynamic city of San Francisco. This global congress draws experts, healthcare practitioners, and researchers and provides them with an opportunity to explore in-depth the sector’s newest developments. To register, click here.

Join your colleagues in sharing innovative approaches to clinical practice, gaining insight into transplant finance, and expanding your leadership skills at the AST Medical Directors Forum.

On behalf of the AST, the European Society for Organ Transplantation (ESOT), and The Transplantation Society (TTS), we are excited to announce that registration is officially open for the International Transplantation Science Meeting 2025. 

ITS 2025 marks the fourth tri-society event in this global collaboration, bringing together top experts, early-career researchers, and transplant professionals worldwide. This meeting offers an exciting forum to explore cutting-edge basic and translational science in and beyond the field of transplantation.

We are excited to announce that each of our Communities of Practice (COPs) is offering travel grants to support attendance at the World Transplant Congress (WTC) 2025!

These grants are designed to help offset travel costs and ensure broad representation of our vibrant transplant community. The application deadline is May 11, 2025.

Check out these complimentary on-demand sessions from CEoT 2025 - featuring OPTN modernization discussions and expert insights on the future of transplantation. 

Join your colleagues and the entire transplant community for the 2025 AST Virtual Run and Fitness Challenge, taking place April 1 – June 15!

Together, we’re aiming to complete 48,149 miles—one for every organ transplant performed in the U.S. last year. Whether you walk, run, bike, swim, or choose any other form of exercise, every mile counts toward our shared goal.

Together, it is our goal to complete a mile for every organ transplanted last year. Can we count on you to help us reach this goal? All funds raised will support a transplant research grant.

The Living Donor Protection Act (LDPA) has been reintroduced in Congress, and we need your support. This bipartisan legislation would prohibit insurance discrimination against living organ donors, ensure they can use FMLA leave during recovery, and require updated educational resources to promote donation.

Take action now — urge your lawmakers to support the LDPA.

As the AST continues to advocate for a modernized and patient-focused organ transplant system, we remain deeply engaged with policymakers, federal agencies, and our community of stakeholders. Recent efforts have expressed growing concerns about the OPTN modernization process and the broader healthcare policy landscape. We know this issue is on many of your minds, and we want to keep you informed of the latest developments and how the AST is taking action.

We’re excited to introduce the AST Mentorship Program, a new member benefit designed to foster meaningful, career-shaping connections across the transplant community.

Whether you're looking to give back as a mentor or grow as a mentee, this program supports all transplant professionals — including students and trainees — with a flexible structure that fits your schedule and preferred way to connect: remote, hybrid, or in-person.

Funding cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) put critical transplant research at risk. NIH-funded studies have driven advancements in transplantation, improving patient outcomes and paving the way for innovations like new immunosuppressants, immune tolerance strategies, and even organ regeneration. Without this support, progress in the field could slow, affecting countless patients and families.

We need your help to ensure that transplant research remains a priority. Use our advocacy page to contact your members of Congress and urge them to protect NIH funding. Together, we can make a difference. Take action today!

The AST developed a survey aimed at soliciting your perspectives on legislative and regulatory issues that significantly influence both patient care and professional practice. Our goal is to establish a platform for our membership to share their invaluable ideas and perspectives and actively engage with the Public Policy Committee and AST leadership. We look forward to your input as we navigate the dynamics of our ever-evolving landscape of transplant care and practice.

Source: Transplantation
We are in the midst of a true modernization of the management of cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection after organ transplantation. Numerous recent advances are the culmination of years of basic and translational research followed by rigorous clinical trials by the transplant community. CMV has always been, and remains, one of the most common opportunistic infections affecting solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients.

Source: Transplantation Direct
Sex disparities in solid organ transplantation are well documented. Relative changes in sex-based outcome disparities after the 2017 standardization of simultaneous liver-kidney (SLK) listing criteria in the United States have not been reported. We hypothesized that this policy’s objective measures of kidney dysfunction may differentially affect SLK patients by sex and that the use of MELD 3.0 in the SLK population might provide unique benefit to female transplant candidates.

Source: Clinical Transplantation
We present an open-label single center randomized trial where 109 patients undergoing KT with ECD grafts between January 2019 and December 2022 were randomized to receive kidneys treated with either hypothermic oxygenated perfusion (HOPE, n = 54) or static cold storage (SCS, n = 55) alone. The primary endpoint was the incidence of delayed graft function (DGF). The secondary endpoints included postoperative complications and graft function and survival in the first year after KT.