Know an early-career professional or student interested in transplantation? Encourage them to check out the AST Fellows Symposium! This unique program offers expert-led sessions and valuable networking with leaders in the field. It’s a great opportunity for fellows, residents, pharmacists, nurses, and students to explore career paths in transplant and build lasting connections.

The AST is pleased to announce its 2025–2026 Board of Directors election results. We extend a warm welcome to the new leaders who will help guide the Society in the year ahead.

The AST announced the recipients of its 2025 Achievement Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award and Transplant Advocacy Award, at the World Transplant Congress (WTC) in San Francisco, CA. The recipients were awarded for their achievements and contributions to the AST and the field of transplantation.

Available on YouTube

This "Understanding the Impact of the Pre-Transplant Mortality Ratio Metric Implementation" survey focuses on how transplant professionals perceive and respond to the recently implemented pre-transplant mortality ratio metric by UNOS. The goal is to assess how the metric has influenced transplant center practices, particularly in patient listing and organ utilization.

The AST submitted a response to HRSA’s Request for Information on the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, emphasizing transparency, data integrity, and outcomes that improve patient and donor care.

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.

Transplantation is one of the few life-saving therapies for patients with end-stage organ disease, yet organ availability remains restrictive. Expanding donors to include those with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, incorporating HBV nucleic acid amplification testing (NAT) positive donors, could improve organ access. However, the risk of donor-derived HBV transmission and recipient management of organs transplanted from HBV NAT-positive donors, particularly in thoracic organ recipients, is limited. We conducted a single-center retrospective study to assess the safety and outcomes in recipients of non-hepatic organ transplants from HBV NAT-positive donors. 

Donor-derived cell-free DNA (dd-cfDNA) is a biomarker that enables the early detection of immune-mediated graft injury. This study evaluated the clinical utility of dd-cfDNA in predicting the presence of biopsy-proven rejection (BPAR). We analyzed 1,070 biopsies from 1,743 kidney transplant recipients enrolled in the prospective, multicenter Kidney Allograft Outcomes AlloSure Registry (KOAR). Biopsies were grouped into surveillance or for-cause groups and stratified by dd-cfDNA status: elevated, non-elevated, or not tested. Rejection yield was significantly higher when dd-cfDNA was elevated: 39% vs. 7% in the surveillance group and 47% vs. 12% in the for-cause group (p<0.0001). Biopsies with elevated dd-cfDNA and rejection diagnoses more frequently demonstrated ABMR and mixed rejection, whereas biopsies performed with non-elevated dd-cfDNA most often showed no rejection, borderline, or TCMR 1A. 

The need to suppress a patient’s immune system after the transplantation of allogeneic cells is associated with wide-ranging side effects. We report the outcomes of transplantation of genetically modified allogeneic donor islet cells into a man with long-standing type 1 diabetes. We used clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)–CRISPR-associated protein 12b (Cas12b) editing and lentiviral transduction to genetically edit the cells to avoid rejection; the cells were then transplanted into the participant’s forearm muscle. He did not receive any immunosuppressive drugs and, at 12 weeks after transplantation, showed no immune response against the gene-edited cells.