34 Lives Announces New Milestone: 500 previously unusable kidneys rescued and repaired for transplant
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., April 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- 34 Lives, PBC, https://34lives.com/ announces that on March 29, 2026, the 34 Lives perfusion team rescued its 500th kidney which was subsequently transplanted by Dr. Jose Figueiro at Medstar Georgetown Transplant Institute. To date, Dr. Figueiro has transplanted over 90 kidneys in partnership with 34 Lives. He explains his passion for the work: "This has been a phenomenal journey—I have performed organ transplants for 30 years and always wanted to save non-transplantable kidneys, but they were offered too late or had other issues. 34 Lives gave us the answer. They use Normothermic Machine Perfusion to "reset the clock," giving the kidney more time out of body. They also use a number of diagnostic tools to provide a score that can help predict whether or not the kidney is physiologically preserved and suitable for transplant. I believe that what we are doing is a major change in kidney preservation with major positive implications on kidney utilization rates and will certainly improve the quality of organs transplanted."
- The West Lafayette, IND-based company is a Public Benefit Company and the only provider of Normothermic Machine Perfusion (NMP) services for kidneys to OPOs and transplant centers.
- 34 Lives launched the first centralized kidney Assessment and Repair Center (ARC) in April 2024 to rescue donor kidneys that have been declined after standard OPTN allocation.
- The center was designed to provide sub-normothermic acellular perfusion (SNAP) and assessment services to rescue hard-to-place kidneys.
- The 34 Lives rescue hub is located in the Purdue Research Park with 12,000 SF of space, 7 operating rooms and over 50 employees, including CEOs Chris Jaynes and Kathleen St. Jean, kidney preservationists, biomedical engineers, transplant center liaisons and support staff.
"Our talented team of kidney preservationists works around the clock to ensure that no kidney is left behind and that the gift of donation is honored and respected. We are immensely proud of the futures we have been able to restore in patients who have suffered with chronic conditions, many of whom spend several days a week on dialysis," notes CEO Chris Jaynes.
According to the National Kidney Foundation (NKF), over 123,000 Americans are on the national transplant waiting list; more than 101,000 need a kidney. In 2024, 22% of waiting patients received the gift of kidney transplantation, while over 12,500 died or became too sick to transplant (34 Lives/day). The non-use of kidneys recovered for transplant has risen to almost 30% in the US and in 2024 more than 9,000 recovered kidneys went unused.1
Hard to place or non-ideal donor kidneys have statistically higher donor risk profiles, including older donors, donors with risk factors for chronic kidney disease and donors after circulatory death (DCD). Many of these factors cannot be changed; however, factors such as preservation technique and transportation time are modifiable. Additionally, the post-procurement functional assessment we provide may help to alleviate uncertainties about hard to place kidneys.
CEO Kathleen St. Jean concludes, "I am immensely proud of the work that 34 Lives is doing. We have now rescued for transplant 527 kidneys which translates to 527 futures restored. Chris and I are acutely aware of the fact that our team of perfusionists and support staff have the kind of dedication and work ethic that makes miracles happen. Even on a holiday weekend like we just had, we have all hands-on deck. This past quarter has been phenomenal and, as always, we thank our OPO partners and transplant centers for their remarkable dedication and partnership."
1OPTN Metrics. Accessed 6/25/25. https://insights.unos.org/OPTN-metrics/
To learn more about the work of 34 Lives, visit the website at https://34lives.com/
34 Lives publications
https://www.frontierspartnerships.org/journals/transplant-international/articles/10.3389/ti.2025.15424/full
https://www.amjtransplant.org/article/S1600-6135(26)00125-5/abstract
About 34 Lives
- 34 Lives is a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) headquartered in the Purdue Research Park in West Lafayette, Indiana. The firm is committed to restoring the lives of patients awaiting kidney transplant by providing innovative solutions that can give hard-to-place kidneys a second chance and enough time to make it to a waiting patient.
- A Central Preservation and Assessment Service to Optimize Donor Kidney Allocation, OPTIMAL, the firm's research protocol, can be found at ClinicalTrials.gov. [Identifier NCT06263023]
- 34 Lives has been funded by ARPA-H, the National Kidney Foundation Innovation Fund, Ballad Health, the Niswonger Foundation, and individual investors.
SOURCE 34 Lives, PBC
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