34 Lives Rescues 34 Kidneys

34 donor kidneys given a second chance

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Dec. 2, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — 34 Lives, a Public Benefit Company which aims to rescue donated kidneys that may otherwise go unused, announces a significant milestone: the 34th successful rescue and transplant of a kidney on November 23, 2024.

34 Lives was founded in 2022 with a mission to decrease the number of kidneys in the US that are recovered with the intent to transplant but subsequently not used. In 2023, that number exceeded 8,000 unused kidneys, despite the fact that approximately 100,000 people are awaiting a kidney transplant.  

According to Co-CEO Kathleen St. Jean, “The number 34 is especially meaningful to our team: Every day in this country, approximately 34 patients are removed from the transplant waiting list, either because they die or because they become too sick to stay on the list. Knowing that we have helped to save 34 lives gives us a renewed sense of urgency and commitment. Our goal has never changed and it never will. We strive to ensure that every kidney that comes to us is given the opportunity to be donated to a recipient who can once again live a normal life.”

LifeGift, the Organ Procurement Organization covering Houston and Ft. Worth, Texas, provided the kidney for the 34^th transplant. The organ transplant team at Duke University Hospital, Durham, NC, performed the transplant. “With mission-oriented, dedicated partners like Duke and LifeGift, we are confident that our work will continue to bring innovation and real progress in the field of kidney transplantation,” said Chris Jaynes, Co-CEO, 34 Lives.

In October, 34 Lives received an ARPA-H Award in the amount of $44M over 5 years. The funds will enable the “No Kidney Left Behind” project through which 34 Lives will create processes utilizing new technologies with the aim to rehabilitate approximately 50% of the otherwise discarded donor kidneys, returning them to transplant centers for implantation into waiting recipients.  The team will leverage Normothermic Machine Perfusion (NMP) to enable real-time recovery of organ viability and function, as well as other novel work rehabilitating kidneys that are discarded, diseased, or ischemically injured. If successful, the resulting biomarker assessments, artificial intelligence prediction tools, and warm perfusion technology may be able to be extended to other transplantable organs, including lungs and livers.

The No Kidney Left Behind project will take place in Indiana at a core preservation hub operating as CLIA- certified clinical laboratory in association with designated Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs).  

To Learn More
To learn more about the work of 34 Lives, visit the website at https://34lives.com/  

About 34 Lives  

• 34 Lives is a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) headquartered in the Purdue Research Park in West Lafayette, Indiana. The firm is committed to saving the lives of patients awaiting kidney transplant by providing innovative solutions that can give hard-to-place kidneys a second chance and enough time to make it to a waiting patient.
• A Central Preservation and Assessment Service to Optimize Donor Kidney Allocation, OPTIMAL, the firm’s research protocol, can be found at ClinicalTrials.gov.  [Identifier NCT06263023]

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SOURCE 34 Lives, PBC