AAKP is proud to publicly advocate for bold innovations that will bring greater hope and improved outcomes for kidney patients. New diagnostics, drugs, and devices – supported by kidney patient advocates – are already helping transcend high-mortality, status quo kidney care and reducing its associated costs to patients, families, and American taxpayers. During this Decade of the Kidney™, AAKP has enthusiastically advanced, and defended, the national vision for improved transplant readiness and transplant access outlined in President Donald Trump’s bipartisan 2019
Executive Order on Advancing American Kidney Health.
From xenotransplantation to artificial implantable and wearable kidneys to cutting-edge 3-D printing technologies, the insights and lived experiences of kidney patients are informing and accelerating a modern revolution in kidney care. Each of these advancements has the potential to expand care choice and treatment availability while reducing America’s decades-long dependance on outdated and less than adequate in-center hemodialysis.
As these breakthroughs move closer to reality and progress through federal regulatory and payment pathways, AAKP will continue to instill the same sense of urgency among policymakers felt by kidney patients, organ donors, and taxpayers. The success of our 2024 nonpartisan, national
KidneyVoter™ registration program has made kidney patients and their allies a permanent and highly formidable constituency within the policy process.
AAKP’s President Edward V. Hickey, III, recently made comments that reflect the organization's unwavering focus on innovation and unmet patient needs:
"Americans diagnosed with kidney disease and kidney failure deserve greater treatment options so they can be free to live their lives, maintain their livelihoods and achieve their aspirations in the same manner as any other American. AAKP is highly optimistic that the forces of innovation, fuled by the growing power of an organized patient constituency and allied medical experts, will reshape kidney care within our lifetimes. Along the way, we will remove barriers, including the antiquated CMS "bundled" kidney care payment system, that have impeded innovation and harmed patients for decades. Our mission is pure because our sole focus is centered on the best interests of patients and American taxpayers." We encourage you to take a few minutes to listen, watch, and learn about just a few of the transplant innovations that have inspired the kidney community and captured the public’s imagination in recent months. We salute all brave patients, researchers, scientists, medical professionals, and private sector leaders working collaboratively to move the next generation of kidney care from the pages of science fiction to the marketplace
Pig kidney transplants take a step forward with approval of human trialsCNN Health article by Nadia Kounang, 9/8/2025.
BREAKTHROUGH: FDA Approves First Human Trials for Pig Kidney TransplantsCNN’s Lynda Kinkade interviews Paul T. Conway, AAKP Vice President, Chair of Policy & Global Affairs, 9/9/2025.
Featured AAKP OnDemand Content |
Robert A. Montgomery, MD, DPhil, FACS; H. Leon Pachter Chair and Professor of Surgery, Director, NYU Langone Transplant Institute: AAKP/GWU Global Summit on Kidney Disease Innovations (2025) - Alternatives to Human Organs: Xenotransplantation
Jeffrey M. Stern, MD; Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery, NYU Grossman School of Medicine; Associate Director, Comprehensive Transfer Center: AAKP National Patient Meeting (2024) - Xenotransplantation: Ethics and Research
Winfred Williams, MD; Clinical Investigator, Associate Professor of Nephrology, Mass General Research Institute; Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Physician, Nephrology, Massachusetts General Hospital; Deputy Editor, The New England Journal of Medicine: AAKP Public Policy Summit (2024) - Opportunities and Barriers in the Advancement of the Next Generation of Organs
Adam D. Griesemer, MD; Associate Professor of Surgery; Surgical Director of Pediatric and Living Donor Liver Transplantation; Surgical Director, Pediatric Solid Organ Transplant Program; NYU Langone Health/Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital: AAKP/GWU Global Summit on Kidney Disease Innovations (2024) - Alternatives to Human Organs: Xenotransplantation
Leonardo V. Riella, MD, PhD, FASN, FAST; Harold and Ellen Danser Endowed Chair, Transplantation; Medical Director, Kidney Transplantation; Associate Director, Legorreta Center for Clinical Transplant Tolerance, Massachusetts General Hospital; Associate Professor of Medicine and Surgery, Harvard Medical School: AAKP/GWU Global Summit on Kidney Disease Innovations (2024) - Alternatives to Human Organs: Xenotransplantation
Alternatives to human organs: Artificial Implantable, Artificial Wearable, and 3D-Printed Kidneys (AAKP/GWU Global Summit on Kidney Disease Innovations, 2025)
Shuvo Roy, PhD, Director, The Kidney Project, Professor, Departments of Bioengineering and Therapeutics Sciences and Surgery, University of California San Francisco
William H. Fissell, MD, Medical Director, The Kidney Project; Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, Vanderbilt University
Buddy D. Ratner, PhD; Co-Director, Joint Professor, Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering, Michael L. & Myrna Darland Endowed Chair, Technology Commercialization, University of Washington
Vidmantas Sakalys, CEO, Vital3D Technologies |
