CHANDIGARH,17.09.22-More accolades for PGIMER as Prof Ashish Sharma, Head, Deptt. of Renal Transplant Surgery, PGIMER and his student Dr. Dev Parkash Choudary awarded 2022 INTERNATIONAL TRANSPLANTATION SCIENCE MENTEE-MENTOR Award in the ongoing international conference by the highest scientific body in the field of transplantation at Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The purpose of this award is to foster the training of new young investigators and promote research in the basic science of transplantation. The award was given based on their original research carried out at PGI in the field of preservation of deceased donor kidneys.

The traditional method of preservation of deceased donor organs involves keeping the organs on ice whereas there has been recent interest in keeping these organs on a machine which can keep the organs at body temperature.

PGIMER Chandigarh is presumably the only institute in India to have such a facility for preserving donated kidneys at body temperature. This method also allows assessment of damage caused to these kidneys if any during organ donation and retrieval process. If this assessment is not available, kidneys were routinely discarded in the past but this technique has allowed PGIMER to assess and transplant these kidneys.

PGI also routinely utilises kidneys donated after cardiac death and when compared to brain death, there is always a chance of organs sustaining damage during the process. The findings of the research presented at Buenos Aires also showed that kidneys preserved by this technique has better kidney function at 1 year post transplantation