The Canadian National Transplant Research Program: Increasing Donation and Improving Transplantation Outcomes

Organ and bone marrow transplants are well-established treatments for patients with incurable medical conditions. However, major gaps and obstacles prevent transplantation from being fully effective. We need to develop new knowledge, policies and health care practices to overcome these barriers. Our transplant research team brings together researchers and stakeholders across Canada from many disciplines to work in an integrated and coordinated manner to increase and improve the promise of transplantation as a 'second chance' at health for Canadians. Our research program will unify the following projects: 1) Improving organs for transplant through targeted organ protection and repair 2) Increasing organ and cell donation through improved donor identification 3) Examining biologic markers of early problems in transplant function and identifying targets for drug treatments 4) Implementing strategies to avoid rejection of transplants and side-effects of medication 5) Predicting and preventing viral complications of transplantation 6) Targeting age-related and health care system problems experienced by children and teenagers with transplants. To support these innovative projects, our program will integrate the management of experimental protocols, data, clinical trials, biobanks and registries across all studies. A core team will examine ethical, economic, legal and social issues related to transplantation. Our team's critical priorities include creating and sharing knowledge with a wide range of stakeholders and training new transplant researchers to sustain progress into the future. Overall, we aim to achieve improvements to donation effectiveness, to transplant policies and processes and to individual transplant outcomes. By increasing the effectiveness of donation and transplantation, the proposed research will substantially improve the health of Canadians who are candidates for and recipients of solid organ and bone marrow transplants.