American Society of Transplantation Cutting Edge of Transplantation 2026

Cutting Edge of Transplantation 2026 examines innovation, equity, and lifelong care across solid organ transplantation. Organized by the American Society of Transplantation, the meeting took place February 26–28 at The Westin Kierland Resort & Spa in Scottsdale, Arizona, under the theme “The Power of Innovation – Turning Challenges into Opportunities.” Sessions address research priorities, trial endpoints, biomarkers, donor research, xenotransplantation, and organ allocation. Organ-specific breakouts consider heart, kidney, liver, and lung transplantation, while closing discussions focus on graft survival, treatment burden, and continuity of care. The program is relevant to transplant clinicians, investigators, and teams considering challenges shared across organ types.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this program, participants should be better able to:

• Evaluate current challenges and opportunities to improve patient care and expand clinical and research impact within the organ transplant ecosystem.
• Deepen understanding of advances in clinical transplantation across chronic and end-stage organ diseases.
• Assess novel endpoints, biomarkers, and registry data to accelerate drug labeling and development.
• Analyze ethical, regulatory, and practical considerations in xenotransplantation and deceased donor management research.
• Examine the current state and future of allocation algorithms, expedited systems, and continuous distribution for heart, kidney, liver, and lung transplantation.
• Formulate strategies to overcome health disparities, redesign continuity of care, and improve long-term graft survival outcomes.

Collection scope: The original description identifies AST’s on-demand collection as containing 60 presentations. That provider collection count does not independently confirm the number of files supplied by this store. The Topics below retain the listing’s original session groupings and breakout subjects.

Topics

• Keynote Speaker: Health Disparities Science and Transplantation

• Session 1: Navigating Shifting HHS and NIH Priorities: Opportunities and Strategic Responses for Transplantation (Opening Patient Perspectives & Panel Discussion)

• Session 2: Designing the Future of Transplantation through Innovative Clinical Research

• Session 2: Harnessing Biomarkers to Redefine Speed and Precision in Drug Development

• Session 2: Novel Endpoints to Spur Innovation in Transplantation

• Session 2: Registry Data to Expand and Accelerate Drug Labeling

• Session 3: Balancing Ethics with Innovation: The Frontier of Deceased Donor Management Research

• Session 3: Deceased Donor Research to Increase Organ Utilization and Improve Outcomes

• Session 3: Genomics Research Using Deceased Donor Tissue to Understand Normal and Abnormal DNA/RNA

• Session 3: Interventions in Recovery and Preservation of Deceased Donor Lungs

• Session 3: Regulatory and Ethical Challenges Related to Donor Research

• Session 4: Anti-Porcine Immunity and Rejection Mechanisms

• Session 4: Ethical Considerations and Public Trust Allotransplant Panel Discussion

• Session 4: Xeno Clinical Trial Readiness

• Session 4: Xeno In Practice: What the Future Will Look Like in Xeno

• Session 5 Opening Talk: Matching Algorithms

• Session 5: Heart Breakout (Continuous Distribution; Current State and Policies; Transport Devices; Pediatric Focus)

• Session 5: Kidney Breakout (Allocation of Scarce Resources; Continuous Distribution; Expedited Allocation Systems)

• Session 5: Liver Breakout (Continuous Distribution; Cost Efficient Strategies and Implementation of Perfusion Technologies; Out of Sequence Allocation)

• Session 5: Lung Breakout (Future Directions into 2035; OPO Perspective Challenges; Transplant Center Perspective Challenges)

• Session 6 Opening Talk: The Future of Transplant Expanding Possibilities for Patients

• Session 6: Heart Breakout (Replacing Transplant Need; Accelerating Development; Reaching the Underserved; Roadblocks to Candidacy)

• Session 6: Kidney Breakout (Expanding Access for Highly Sensitized Patients; Islet Cell Therapies for Diabetes; Access for Patients with a History of Cancer)

• Session 6: Liver Breakout (Adult Hepatologist Perspective; Pediatric Perspective in a Genomic Era; Transplant Surgeon/Surgical Director Perspective into 2035)

• Session 6: Lung Breakout (Emerging Infections in 2035; New Frontiers in ILD Therapy; Shifting Referral Patterns to Promote Equity; Expanding Eligibility for 2035)

• Session 7: Bridging the Gap: Redesigning Continuity of Care for Lifelong Transplant Success

• Session 7: From Treatment Burden to Treatment Freedom: Reimagining the Patient Experience

• Session 7: One Transplant for Life: Reimagining Long-Term Outcomes

• Session 7: The 10-Year Wall: Why Graft Survival Is Stalling

• Session 7: The Missing Link: Adjunct Therapies to Protect the Graft and the Patient