UW Health Transplant Center
The Future Needs Us Now
Help Give Patients a Second Chance at Life
Transforming the lives of transplant patients is what renowned UW experts have been able to achieve for more than 55 years — and what a gift from you can continue to accomplish. By contributing to the UW Health Transplant Center, you’ll ensure the center remains at the forefront of new medications, technology, patient care systems, and surgical techniques that’ll improve the organ donation and transplantation experience.
Since the inception of the organ donation and transplant programs, nearly 20,000 patients from around the world have received their gift of life from an organ donor. And your philanthropic gift will help to further efforts to advance treatment and care, and direct the future of transplantation. Now that’s transformational.
Wisconsin Medicine is a partnership between world-leading medical institutions UW Health and the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, who have partnered for more than 100 years on innovative treatments, research, education, and compassionate patient care. This powerful combination is in a unique position to usher in a new era through the Wisconsin Medicine campaign.
Gifts are being made through the University of Wisconsin Foundation which raises, invests, and distributes funds for the benefit of Wisconsin Medicine. Learn more.
Make Your Impact
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Greatest Need Fund
Gifts to the Greatest Need Fund provide the UW Health Transplant Center the flexibility to rapidly respond to the most crucial areas of need — in treatment, research, and care — at any moment.
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Research
By making a gift to this fund, you’ll help to advance important research initiatives and explore new ways to provide transplant patients with the best chances of long-term success.
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Patient and Family Support
Contributions go directly toward benefiting transplant patients and family members who need additional financial support for housing or other unexpected expenses related to their transplant.
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Organ and Tissue Donation
Gifts to this fund go toward advancing knowledge and raising awareness of organ and tissue donation, and highlighting the importance of registering as an organ, tissue, and eye donor.
Honor a transplant-iversary!
The anniversary of a transplant is a time of gratitude and renewal. Show your support for this celebration of life.
Impact In Action
Lung transplant recipient plays on thanks to organ donor
“Every morning, I wake up and say thank you to my donor. You need a good set of lungs to do kabuki, to interact and connect with your audience and I am grateful to the donor who gave me an opportunity to get back on stage.”
The hum of Dave Furumoto’s bagpipes is a welcome sound in his home once again.
New Lungs and Lease on Life
“Words can’t describe how grateful I am to everyone who helped me, and that includes the donor and their family for making the decision to give part of themselves to me,. Without them, I wouldn’t be here today.”
When 28-year-old lung transplant recipient Darlene Johnson walked out of University Hospital in August, 2022, she was not only defying the odds of a grueling 10-month medical nightmare, she was fulfilling a promise she’d made to herself when the possibility of leaving the hospital alive was anything but certain.
Additional Impacts in Action
UW Health and the UW School of Medicine and Public Health have touched so many lives. And each story — from patients and doctors to researchers and students — offers inspiration and a resolve to continue blazing new trails. Check out every amazing story that has us all striving for a healthier tomorrow.
Transplant Research Update Video Archives
Program Highlights
UW Health Transplant Center Pride Points
One of the top transplant programs in the world and a clinical destination for UW Health.
Number one in volume for pancreas transplants, out of 80 transplant centers.
Number two in volume for pancreas/kidney transplants, out of 121 transplant centers.
Number six in volume for kidney transplants, out of 240 transplant centers.
Top 25 in liver transplants, out of 142 centers.
Number two in national paired kidney programs (number one with National Kidney Registry).
The nation’s largest renal autotransplant program.
Provided transplants for patients from all 50 states in the United States and from 10 other countries.
Working in partnership with the Veterans Benefits Administration, certified to provide transplantations to U.S. military veterans.
Shared resources provide researchers with a wide variety of services to ensure their science is supported by state-of-the-art technology and techniques.
Offers an expanded list of educational opportunities for scientists, undergraduates, graduates, postgraduates, physicians, nurses, and other health care providers with the goals of providing the highest level of education in transplantation research and clinical services.
Innovations Developed at the UW
The Wisconsin Technique for pancreas transplants was developed by UW Department of Surgery’s Hans Sollinger, MD, PhD, in 1983, vastly improving success rates.
UW Solution, a cold-storage organ solution to keep organs healthy while being transported from donor to recipient was developed by UW faculty Folkert Belzer, MD, and James Southard, PhD, and began being used worldwide in 1987.
CellCept, an immunosuppressant drug, was developed by Hans Sollinger, MD, PhD, and approved by the FDA in 1995.
Organ Donor Information
UW Organ and Tissue Donation advocates for donors, donor families, and recipients and educates health care professionals and the public to enrich and save lives through organ and tissue donation. Learn more about the importance of registering as an organ and tissue donor.
Questions about the UW Health Transplant Center
Ushering in a new era of medicine and tackling the toughest challenges in health care may leave you as curious as you are excited.
To discover more about chairs and professorships and planned giving — and how vital both are to keeping the UW Health Transplant Center at the forefront of transplant research, innovation, and care — please complete the following contact form. Reach out with any questions or comments about those major efforts or other issues you’d like to discuss. We’d love to continue the conversation about the ways the UW Health Transplant Center is helping to give patients a second chance at life.
The Future Needs Us Now — the Campaign for Wisconsin Medicine
UW Health and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health are ushering in a new era of medicine — one that builds on breakthroughs to save more lives.