On today's special episode of Hot Topics and Kidney Health we're sharing audio from a recent webinar hosted by National Kidney Foundation on kidney xenotransplantation. Stay tuned to hear from the experts and learn about the latest updates on animal-to-human transplantation.

Dr. Tatsuo Kawai is a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and the A. Benedict Cosimi Chair in Transplant Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also director of the Legorreta Center for Clinical Transplantation Tolerance. He was awarded the Martin Research Prize at MGH in 2009 and the New Key Opinion Leader Award by the Transplantation Society in 2010 for this work. In the field of xenotransplantation, he has collaborated extensively with eGenesis over the past five years, achieving over two years of survival for genetically edited kidney xenografts in nonhuman primates, which was published in Nature in 2023. In March 2024, he successfully performed the world first kidney xenotransplantation from the pig with 69 genomic edits in a living patient with end stage renal disease.

Vineeta Kumar MD, FAST, FASN is the lead nephrologist for the Living Kidney Donor and Incompatible Kidney Transplant programs at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. She is an expert in kidney transplantation, living kidney donation, incompatible kidney transplant, kidney paired donation and cardiovascular outcomes after kidney transplantation.

Peter Reese, MD, PhD, is an NIH-funded transplant nephrologist and epidemiologist. His research focuses on: a) developing effective strategies to increase access to solid organ transplantation; b) improving the process of selecting and caring for living kidney donors; c) determining outcomes of health policies on vulnerable populations with renal disease, including the elderly; d) testing strategies to improve important health behaviors such as medication adherence; and e) transplant ethics. He was a recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, was elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, and was a Greenwall Faculty Scholar in bioethics. He is a past chair of the Ethics Committee for the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), which oversees organ allocation and transplant regulation in the US, and is an Associate Editor for the American Journal of Kidney Diseases. He co-led the THINKER, USHER, MYTHIC, and SHELTER trials involving transplanting HCV-infected donor organs into uninfected recipients. His work has been generously funded by foundations and the NIH, including a K-24 to support mentoring.

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For people with kidney failure, hemodialysis is a life saving treatment. On average, people can live for 5 to 10 years on dialysis, but many have lived 20 to 30 years. Hemodialysis also comes with some distressing symptoms like muscle cramps, itching, and fatigue. Doctor Jennifer Flythe and Precious McCowan, a dialysis patient and kidney advocate, are here to talk about a new study that aims to better monitor and help manage the symptoms of hemodialysis.

Dr. Jenny Flythe, MD -is a nephrologist and clinical investigator at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Kidney Center, Associate Professor and Vice Chief of Nephrology and Hypertension at the UNC School of Medicine, and Director of Dialysis Services at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill, NC. She conducts patient-oriented qualitative, epidemiologic, and prospective research aimed at improving outcomes and experiences among individuals with kidney disease.

Precious McCowan, BS, MS, ESRD- At the age of nine, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes; living with this condition for over 25 years progress my kidney failure. By the age of twenty-seven, I was placed on in-center hemodialysis. In 2010 I received both a kidney and pancreas transplant; unfortunately, I had to return to dialysis and insulin shortly after transplantation. In 2019 I received my second kidney transplant. Before my second kidney transplantation, I did dialysis for nine years. I have served as a Facility Patient Representative (FPR) for my dialysis facility throughout this challenging yet rewarding journey. I heartily work to advance patient health engagement and renal education to better care while on dialysis. Acquiring the passion for assisting those affected by End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) promoted my affiliation with the ESRD Medical Review Board (MRB) and the ESRD Patient Advisory Council (PAC) of Texas. Also, I am a member of the Kidney Patient Advisory Council; as an advocate partnering with ESRD caregivers and medical professionals to effectively meet the needs of those living with kidney disease.

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The most commonly used equation that determines someone’s kidney function includes a binary male-female sex coefficient. But what does this mean for the care of transgender, gender-diverse, and nonbinary people? Cameron Whitley, an associate professor with kidney failure experience, and researchers Keila Turino Miranda, a PhD student, and Dr. David Collister, a nephrologist, shed light on this important topic.

Dr. David Collister (he/him) is a Kidney Doctor, Clinician-Scientist and Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta. He has a PhD in Health Research Methodology from McMaster University. His research program is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Kidney Foundation of Canada and focuses on randomized controlled trials of interventions for uremic symptoms, cannabinoids, the responsiveness of uremic symptoms to the initiation of dialysis, metabolomics, proteomics and the intersection of gender diversity and kidney disease.

Keila Turino Miranda (she/her) is a first year PhD Student in the Cardiovascular Health and Autonomic Regulation Laboratory at McGill University. Ms. Turino Miranda’s work focuses on understanding and addressing the unique healthcare needs and disparities faced by transgender, gender-diverse, and non-binary (TGD) individuals in the realms of nephrology and cardiology using a patient-oriented approach.

Cameron T. Whitley, Ph.D. (he/they) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Western Washington University. He studies issues concerning the environment, human-animal relationships, and transgender-affirming medicine. He got involved with studying transgender-affirming medicine when he was diagnosed with kidney failure and received a kidney transplant while writing his dissertation. Through this process, he coauthored one of the first articles addressing the discrepancies in evaluating kidney function for transgender people. He has over five dozen publications featured in places like Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Academic Emergency Medicine, Clinical Chemistry, and Annual Review of Sociology.

Additional resources:

Kidney Function in a Gender Diverse Landscape

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