New Software Helps Match Organ Donors to Recipients

At first glance, the concept of organ replacement seems like a simple one.  You take the healthy organ out of one body and replace the inoperative or damaged one in another body; however, it’s not nearly so easy. Frequently, the average individual can’t fathom the various difficulties that are inherent to the transplant of an organ.  Everything from unexpected complications to doctor error can create problems for the transplant process.  However, no single issue can hinder an organ donation like compatibility.  Ensuring that the right person is donating to the correct patient in order to avoid a body that rejects the new organ is a complex process.  There are a number of difficult factors that must be considered, and one new software program may be able to help.

The Problem

When one person is donating his or her kidney to another individual (perhaps a close friend or family member), there is a good chance that the organ won’t be compatible.  There’s also a chance that there may not be a compatible donor nearby or that someone will not want to give a kidney to a stranger.  The logistics involved in finding the right organs for the right people can be a daunting and difficult task because of the sheer number of factors involved.

The Solution

Enter David Jacobs.  He’s a software expert, and he received a kidney transplant over ten years ago, and it saved his life.  He was inspired to write a program that would help match donors and recipients.  His new program is capable of looking at more than 1,200 variables when calculating the correct matches between donors and patients.

The software is so sophisticated that it was even able to coordinate transplants between nine different people, assuring that each intended recipient received a compatible kidney, even if it wasn’t the specific kidney that he or she intended.  The results, however, are consistently life-saving!