Lab Mission

In USA there are over 14,000 people on the liver transplant wait list and about 1 out of 7 patients will die before getting a liver transplant. Despite this scenario about 30% of donated livers are not used because of poor organ quality. Our lab focus is on transplant immunobiology more specifically on organ preservation. Our main focus is to increase the tolerance of liver grafts to ischemia and improve the quality of suboptimal grafts by means of machine perfusion preservation.

Machine preservation besides allowing graft viability assessment, may improve transplant logistics by extending the period for organ allocation and transport. In addition, it may also be able to “resuscitate” grafts that are initially deemed not transplantable. Through an innovative translational approach, our lab is performing experiments that may have a major clinical impact for a common and relevant problem and may change the existing paradigm of preserving organ in an ice container. It has the potential to increase the pool of livers for transplant, reduce the mortality in the waiting list, and to reduce morbidity and mortality of patients after liver transplant.