Saving Lives Through Efficient Allocation of

SAVING LIVES THROUGH EFFICIENT ALLOCATION OF DONOR ORGANS

KAUST researchers optimize kidney donation systems

There are approximately 6,000 patients waiting for organ donation in Saudi Arabia. Compared to 120,000 patients in the US, this number may seem small, yet the organ donation rate in the Kingdom is much lower than in Western Europe or the US, and the gap between organ needs and organ donation is only growing. Living and deceased kidney donation systems are convoluted and present many challenges. KAUST researchers are helping to create a national kidney exchange program (KEP) in Saudi Arabia that will address these problems and save lives.

Michal Mankowski, a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering division at KAUST, has been working on improving organ transplantation policies. His research to date has focused on the US health care system, but his findings could be applied to Saudi Arabia. In the US, a donated kidney is offered to one hospital at a time and each medical center must decide whether the organ is suitable for one of its patients. The decision to accept or decline a kidney takes time and the first hospital it is offered to rarely accepts the organ. By the time a kidney is accepted by a hospital, a significant amount of time may have elapsed, putting the quality of the organ at risk. In the new system proposed by Mankowski and his colleagues, a donor kidney is simultaneously offered to a group of hospitals with a one-hour time

UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY

“Mankowski designed scoring systems for kidney paired donation – which allows donors who cannot donate to their loved ones to exchange kidneys – that find better biologic matches while guaranteeing the largest possible number of transplants.”

MICHAL MANKOWSKI Postdoctoral Fellow in the Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering division

WE’VE STARTED DISCUSSIONS WITH LEADING CLINICIANS IN THE KINGDOM WHO HAVE EXPRESSED AN INTEREST IN COLLABORATING WITH US TO BRING NOVEL SOLUTIONS TO ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION OPERATIONS.

limit to accept or decline. This system allows for faster allocation and decreases the number of discards. Sommer Gentry, Professor of Mathematics at the United States Naval Academy, supervised this project, which was selected as top-10 article of 2019 by the American Journal of Transplantation.

Together with Khalid Almeshari from the Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation and Joris van de Klundert from Mohammad bin Salman College of Business and Entrepreneurship – supported by KAUST Professors Mikhail Moshkov and Diogo Gomes – Mankowski is now exploring how to optimize living kidney donation in Saudi Arabia. The scientists are helping to centralize the multiple KEPs in Saudi Arabia into a national KEP. A centralized KEP has the potential to more efficiently find kidney donor-recipient matches, thereby increasing organ donation rates and reducing mortality of patients across the Kingdom.