Innovations Address Geographic and Donor Supply Challenges in Organ Transplantation

A medical helicopter landing on an airport runway at the base of a mountain, and a person holding a cooler that says "Human Organ For Transport." A medical helicopter landing on an airport runway at the base of a mountain, and a person holding a cooler that says "Human Organ For Transport."

Academic Research by: Sridhar Tayur

In the United States, organs from deceased donors are allocated regionally rather than nationally. This system often favors very wealthy recipients with the means to travel, leading to disparities in access to organ transplants. Medical professionals, patients, families, and researchers are advocating for greater access to organs and improved equity in the donor organ transplantation process.

In a recent article published in Decision Sciences, Ford Distinguished Research Chair and Professor of Operations Management at the Tepper School Sridhar Tayur introduced two innovative solutions he developed and implemented. 

“These ideas should inspire our community to apply our skills, talent, and energies to tackle important societal problems, not just in organ transplantation or health care, but more broadly across a variety of disciplines,” Tayur explained.

In 2011, he founded OrganJet with the vision of providing equal opportunities for all patients to access necessary care, regardless of their financial means. OrganJet facilitates the transportation of patients not wealthy enough to use private jets to tap into the private jet network to fly to a city where an organ is available for a transplant.

Tayur’s second innovation is Nudge Videos, which tries to boost consent and emphasizes the benefits of being a donor. The United States has an opt-in system for becoming a donor, which means that individuals have to give consent and are not organ donors by default.

Frequently, medical professionals ask next of kin to provide consent to use the organs of deceased patients. Nudge Videos discourage negative feelings based on religion or minority membership by using interviews with people who are demographically representative of next of kin. Each consent can help up to eight organ transplant patients and 75 tissue recipients. In 2016, the Obama White House highlighted this as one of the top innovations in organ donation.

A person holding a holographic image of a heart in their hands.

Tayur is collaborating with doctors from the University of California San Francisco and Tepper School colleagues to improve liver transplant fairness for both men and women. He’s also adapting transplants for different body sizes using split liver transplantation, which divides a donor liver for two recipients. In addition, Tayur’s team is exploring a technique called machine perfusion to increase liver availability by preserving organ quality before transplantation.