LIVErNEWS No 79 - Summer 2022

New research to help organ donation & transplantation patients NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) has launched a £20m set of research units in the UK across blood, organs, plasma, and stem cells.

The ve Blood and Transplant Units (BTRUs) - co-funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and NHSBT - are aimed at providing new technologies, techniques or insights that will benet donation, transfusion, and transplantation.

Experts at Newcastle University are working with scientists at the University of Cambridge for the NIHR BTRU in Organ Donation and Transplantation research unit - which is receiving a total of £4 million. Their aim is to increase the number of organs available, improve long-term outcomes and enhance quality of life after transplant.

Research at the Unit The research unit will involve a variety of work, including: Ÿ Trial the use of enzymes to remove blood group A and B antigens from donated organs during machine perfusion, to create universal donor O type organs. This could transform clinical practice and especially benet ethnic minority groups who currently have reduced access to transplantation due to high prevalence of blood group B. Ÿ Increasing the use of donated organs through image analysis. The unit will further develop an app which can rate the likely performance of an organ based on its appearance - for example, how much fat there is on a donated liver - giving a prediction of the transplant outcome. Ÿ Develop new patient reported measures that assess the impact that an organ transplant has had on a recipient's wellbeing and assesses the quality of their experience of going through an organ transplant journey.

Andrew Fisher, Professor of Respiratory Transplant Medicine at Newcastle University and Deputy Director of the new NIHR BTRU in Organ Donation and Transplantation, said: "We are delighted to be co-hosting this new BTRU, dedicated to increasing the quantity and quality of organ transplants performed and addressing inequalities in access to organ transplantation.

"Our team of researchers from Newcastle University and Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, covering a wide range of disciplines, will continue to work closely with colleagues at the University of Cambridge and NHS Blood and LIVErNEWS No. 79 ~ 18 ~ Summer 2022