(Carnegie Mellon)

Bookmark and ShareTweet this storyShare this story about FacebookEmail this story with a friendArchivesSubmit history

A St. Louis man and a woman in New Hampshire became the gift of life this holiday season.

They have received the first kidney transplant made possible thanks to a new national programme the organ procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN).

The program uses a Carnegie Mellon University computer algorithm to match candidates with living donor transplantation.

The two recipients - Ken Crowder in St. Louis, MO. and Kathy Niedzwiecki in Pelham, NH - had loved those who were willing to donate a kidney.  But they were medically incompatible with them.

Thanks to a gift of pairs, betrothed by Mr. Crowder, Rebecca Burkes donated his kidney to Ms. Niedzwiecki. And sister-in-law of Ms. Niedzwiecki, Cathy Richard, donated his kidney to Mr Crowder.

Recovery and transplant donor operations took place on 6 December at Barnes-Jewish St. Louis and Dartmouth - Hitchcock Medical Center, hospital in Lebanon in New Hampshire

Matches have been identified for a computer running October 27 as 43 candidates and 45 donor transplantation.

It was the first round match of pilot OPTN, which should increase the number of transplants kidney paired donations (KPD) by creating a national pool of pairs of donors and recipients.

Sharing the United Network for organ (UNOS) operates the OPTN under federal contract.

"It is gratifying to know that this pilot program has helped make these transplants possible, said Tuomas Sandholm, Professor of computer science at CMU, who led the development of computer algorithms to optimize the correspondence runs."

Increase the size of the pool, we are confident that we can significantly increase the number of patients who are able to receive kidney transplants." "Most people in the pool, already some of them we can save," said Sandholm.

Charles Alexander, President of OPTN/UNOS, said the algorithm of the CMU and Sandholm expert advice have been important elements of the pilot program.

"These contributions have helped develop us the program faster and at significantly lower cost than we could have met otherwise, so we can focus on the registration and the improvement of life's kidney paired donation", he explained.

Related links: read | School of computer science