The lack of donor organs remains the principal limitation to the field of transplantation. In 2014, wait-listed patients exceeded donors by almost tenfold. As the field of regenerative medicine advances, bioengineered tissues and organs could one day help close this gap. It’s a positive sign that the White House has expressed interest in supporting research in this area. I have invited my colleague, Jason Wertheim, to share details from a recent conference hosted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) addressing this subject.
The White House Addresses Organ Shortage in Regenerative Medicine Conference
Jason Wertheim, MD, PhD, Northwestern University – Chair of the AST’s Transplant Regenerative Medicine COP
The White House OSTP hosted a half-day conference on Thursday, May 28th that focused on regenerative medicine strategies to address donor organ shortage. Scientists, physicians, and transplant groups came together with key players in governmental agencies to discuss methods of advancing regenerative medicine research and advocating for government assistance to promote the field.
The American Society of Transplantation (AST) was well-represented at this meeting: Dr. Alejandro Soto-Gutierrez and I attended from the AST’s Transplantation Regenerative Medicine Community of Practice (COP), along with Dr. Gerald Brandacher, the past-chair of the AST’s Vascular Composite Allotransplant Advisory Council, and Emily Wilson, one of the AST's bipartisan lobbyists who represents the society in Washington, DC with Bryan Cave LLP. Other attendees included transplant-related organizations such as the American Society of Nephrology and the Global Liver Institute, the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, and various government agencies (NIH, NIST, NSF, DOD, Army, BARDA, and NASA). New Organ and the Organ Preservation Alliance organized both the conference and a one-day roadmap development session the day before.
The group focused on novel cell, tissue, and organ preservation strategies and the development of new cell populations that may require less (or no) immunosuppression once transplanted. One particular focus area for the current administration is the promotion of new manufacturing processes, particularly for biomedical applications. An early manufacturing initiative of the Obama Administration, announced in 2012 and called the “National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII),” is located in Youngstown, Ohio. This center specializes in developing 3D printing, which will revolutionize the way industrial parts – or possibly even organs – are designed and produced.
During the one-day development session before the OSTP meeting, discussion centered on 3D bioprinting, tissue bioengineering, and tissue preservation technology. Among this crosscutting group of both clinicians, scientists, and representatives from government agencies, we were able to discuss the science behind these technologies and brainstorm strategies to solve problems. Increased federal funding for this research was a common theme. A new strategy that was discussed to advance technological development in this area is the development of incentive prizes, which some agencies, including NASA, have recently instituted. At the conference, NASA announced a Centennial Challenge in Tissue Engineering. This 2015 Centennial Challenge will reward the first team or individual to successfully develop vascularized, functional tissue in vitro, which would be an amazing development for our field.
All together, the symposium brought several key players to brainstorm new strategies for addressing the organ shortage. The immediate success of this meeting is that we continued the discussion about new technologies that can preserve and develop tissues, and we brought government agencies together to develop a coordinated approach to the multidisciplinary challenge of developing new cells and tissues for transplantation.
I highly encourage anyone who would like to become more involved in the activities and research discussed herein to join the AST’s new Transplantation Regenerative Medicine COP. It’s an exciting time to be working in this space.
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