We have recently become aware of pending CMS regulations regarding relationships between centers where living donor organs are recovered and centers where the organs are transplanted. This was the subject of a conference call on October 28 that was widely attended. The essence of the new regs is that the transplanting center holds at least partial responsibility for standards at the recovery center. You can access the proposal here. AST...

This week in Stockholm, the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine was awarded to Bruce Beutler, Jules Hoffmann, and Ralph Steinman (posthumously) for their work in defining the roles of dendritic cells and the innate immune system in immunologic responses. Even a clinician like me appreciates the significance of these discoveries, and the rapidly evolving understanding of their role in alloinjury. While working primarily in tumor immunology, these visionary scientists remind us of the interplay between the lab and the clinic; nowhere is this interplay more important than...