This May, the Vanderbilt Transplant Center is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its first liver transplant.

Last year, Liz Barnett became one of seven people at Vanderbilt University Medical Center to receive a combined heart/liver transplant in 2021.

A Vanderbilt team is studying whether injured human donor livers declined for transplant can be recovered by cross-circulation between the human liver and a xenogeneic host.

The Vanderbilt Transplant Center established a new record in calendar year 2021 for total solid organ transplants, performing 645 life-saving procedures among its adult and pediatric organ transplant programs.

Liver transplants have traditionally required a high volume of transfusions of blood products, which comes with several downsides. The products are costly to patients — as high as $15,000 on top of the expense of a transplant. And they are sometimes not well accepted in patients because they degrade over time and are derived from multiple patients.

The Vanderbilt Transplant Center's newly launched living liver donor program allows relatives to donate part of their liver to their loved one, something only possible at select centers in the country.

The Vanderbilt Transplant Center performed 73 transplants in May, setting a Medical Center record for the most transplants in a month. Sixteen of those were heart transplants — also a monthly record — cementing VUMC’s status as the busiest heart transplant center in the country.