Organ Transplantation (Ministry of Education and National Health Commission Key Laboratory of Organ Transplantation)

The Institute of Organ Transplantation at Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, is the earliest comprehensive research institution in China devoted to basic and clinical research in organ transplantation. It is currently the Key Laboratory of Organ Transplantation of the Ministry of Education and the National Health Commission, the Key Laboratory of Organ Transplantation of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, a key discipline of the Ministry of Education, a national clinical key specialty of the National Health Commission, and the first multi-organ transplantation center approved by the National Health Commission authorized to perform transplantation of all major organs (heart, liver, lung, kidney, pancreas, small intestine, etc.). As the birthplace of organ transplantation in China, in the late 1970s it pioneered clinical kidney and liver transplantation, and subsequently performed the first simple pancreas transplant in the Asia-Pacific region, the first one-stage combined pancreas-duodenum and kidney transplant in China, the world's first maternal living-donor spleen transplant for the treatment of hemophilia A, the first abdominal multi-organ cluster transplant in Asia, the first brain-death determination and voluntary organ donation in China, and pediatric kidney transplantation in the world's smallest recipient (2 months of age), among others. In 1979 the Institute of Organ Transplantation was established with the approval of the Ministry of Health; in 1986 it was approved as the Key Laboratory of Organ Transplantation of the Ministry of Health; in 1989 it was approved by the State Education Commission as a key discipline in general surgery and organ transplantation; in 2002 it was approved as the Key Laboratory of Organ Transplantation of the Ministry of Education; in 2013 it was approved by the Ministry of Health as a national clinical key specialty in organ transplantation; in 2016 it was rated "excellent" as a key laboratory by the Ministry of Education/National Health Commission; in 2017 it was selected as the Key Laboratory of Organ Transplantation of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. In 2021 it received a "good" rating in the five-year periodic evaluation of Ministry of Education key laboratories (life sciences field); in 2022 it was rated "excellent" in the "13th Five-Year Plan" evaluation of National Health Commission key laboratories, being the only NHC key laboratory in Central China to receive this honor. It was approved as one of the first master's degree granting points in 1978, one of the first doctoral degree granting points in 1981, and a postdoctoral mobile station in 1995. Through nearly half a century of effort, the Institute of Organ Transplantation has developed into a modern transplantation center of substantial scale and a cradle for cultivating academic leaders. The Key Laboratory of Organ Transplantation takes the Institute of Organ Transplantation as its main body, joining with Tongji Hospital's liver surgery, cardiac and great vessel surgery, hematology, Union Hospital's cardiac and great vessel surgery and Tongji Medical College's Department of Immunology to jointly build a platform for transplantation science research. Its main research directions are: 1. Organ donation and transplantation; 2. Research on the mechanisms of hepatitis B cirrhosis and liver cancer, and liver transplantation; 3. Organ preservation and ischemia-reperfusion injury; 4. Immune response mechanisms and immunomodulation; 5. Xenotransplantation. It undertakes scientific research and experimental work on a number of major projects, including the National Key Research and Development Program, the Ministry of Science and Technology's "973" and "863" programs, key projects of the National Natural Science Foundation and the Ministry of Health industry fund. Its research achievements have won 3 National Science and Technology Progress Awards and National Science and Technology Achievement Awards; 42 provincial and ministerial awards; 13 authorized invention patents; 23 clinical innovative technologies; and it has led the drafting of 29 expert consensuses, clinical guidelines and technical operation standards. As first author or corresponding author it has published in many high-level international professional journals such as "Nature Medicine", "Circulation", "European Urology", "Hepatology", "Kidney International", "American Journal of Transplantation", "Journal of Immunology" and "Transplantation"; it has edited 44 monographs and textbooks such as "Organ Transplantation", "Transplantation", "Transplant Immunology", "Atlas of Organ Transplantation Surgery", "Frontiers of Transplantation", "Brain Death—Modern Thanatology", "Combined Organ Transplantation", "Transplant Pathology" and "Chinese Medical Encyclopedia - Organ Transplantation Surgery"; it founded the Organ Transplantation Branch of the Chinese Medical Association and China's first transplantation professional journal, the "Chinese Journal of Organ Transplantation", whose editors-in-chief have all been experts of this laboratory, making great contributions to the development of surgery and transplantation science in China. The Institute of Organ Transplantation has a clinical division and a basic research division. The clinical division has 84 beds and can perform 15 kinds of highly difficult clinical transplants, including heart, liver, kidney, lung, spleen and pancreas transplants as well as combined liver-kidney, pancreas-kidney, liver-intestine and abdominal multi-organ cluster transplants; its three comprehensive indicators—transplant programs, cumulative case numbers and long-term survival—have consistently held a leading position in China. In kidney transplantation it is the first unit in China to exceed 8,000 cases; it has performed more than 2,000 liver transplants, maintaining a nationwide leading level; it has performed nearly 200 pancreas-kidney transplants, with success rates and long-term survival rates reaching internationally advanced levels. In recent years, its work and achievements related to organ donation after cardiac death (DCD) have also been in a leading position in China, with its completed numbers ranking firmly first in Hubei Province. The basic research division includes a basic experimental research center, large and small animal laboratories, a transplantation pathology laboratory, a histocompatibility testing laboratory, a clinical laboratory and an organ transplantation biobank, etc. The institute covers an area of 5,267.76 square meters and has 704 pieces of equipment, with a five-level research platform from the gene to the clinical level, capable of meeting the needs of in-depth scientific experiments at multiple levels—clinical, large/small animal models, cell, molecular, gene and protein levels.