Through a series of events and promotions each April, Legacy of Hope recognizes National Donate Life Month (NDLM). The observation was established by Donate Life America to raise awareness about organ donation and share the perspectives of individuals and families touched by donation and transplantation.

Alan Mayes, RN, a post-kidney transplant coordinator with the UAB Comprehensive Transplant Institute, retired in January 2024. During his long career, Mayes played a role in advances at UAB Medicine generally and in transplant medicine specifically. His supervisors and colleagues say he’ll be hard to replace.

Mary Beth Helms Templin had a lifetime of challenges with her lungs, starting with being diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at just three months old. Those challenges paled in comparison to Templin’s experience as a young adult, which ultimately led her to the UAB Comprehensive Transplant Institute to receive a double lung transplant.

Frank Reeves says he has two birthdays. The first was the day he was born 62 years ago, and the second was May 12, 1998 – the day he received his kidney transplant. Reeves’ difficult path to that second birthday began when he was 35 and serving as a police officer in Dothan, Ala.

“I know more about lungs than I ever wanted to,” said Wanda Tunnell, 65. The Tuscaloosa, Ala., resident’s double lung transplant in May 2021 was the culmination of a long journey of unanswered questions and terrifying episodes of breathing trouble.

In August of 1995, the Miley family found themselves in a hospital room celebrating the arrival of their newest addition, a baby girl named Brooke. A year later, the family was back in the hospital for a different reason. Brooke had restrictive cardiomyopathy, a life-threatening condition that the hospital could not treat.

Currently used Food and Drug Administration-approved transplant drugs — with the addition of an also already FDA-approved complement inhibitor — are the optimal immunosuppression regimen for pig-to-human kidney transplants, according to a landmark discovery by University of Alabama at Birmingham investigators. The peer-reviewed research is published today in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Nikara McNeely woke up one morning and couldn’t see. Everything was blurry. Normally when she woke up with blurry vision, it would clear up quickly. But something was very different this time, and Nikara was scared.

Emily Boydston, RN, has truly unique insight into being a dedicated uterus transplant coordinator – she’s the only one in the United States so far. It’s been a big year for her and her patients, given that the uterus transplant program at the UAB Comprehensive Transplant Institute (CTI) recently delivered its first baby born from a uterus transplant pregnancy outside of a clinical trial.

At age 17, Mallory was given a devastating diagnosis that would drastically change the way she could start a family one day.  

The UAB Comprehensive Transplant Institute performs human leukocyte antigen (HLA) testing prior to organ transplantation, to help ensure a good match between donor and recipient and reduce the risk of rejection. This testing is carried out by the Institute’s state-of-the-art Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics Lab, which plays an important role in the transplant process.

On their wedding day 34 years ago, when Steve and Lynne Harrison vowed to be at each other’s side in sickness and in health, neither could have imagined the journey ahead.