“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.

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.

UAB Medicine, home to Alabama’s leading transplant program, the University of Alabama at Birmingham Comprehensive Transplant Institute, has been named the presenting medical partner of the Transplant Games of America when the biennial event comes to Birmingham in July 2024. Additionally, UAB’s Sports and Exercise Medicine team will be providing medical coverage for all athletes at the games.

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.  

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.

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Cardiovascular Institute (CVI) published a study in Circulation showing that, among ventricular assist device recipients, patients with a particular form of dilated cardiomyopathy known as familial dilated cardiomyopathy have better clinical outcomes compared with other forms of the disease.

Carol Glover retired in 2017 after working 32 years for University of Alabama Athletics, and she was looking forward to her upcoming wedding and traveling the world with her new husband. Glover couldn’t have foreseen that her journey would lead to her becoming the oldest kidney-pancreas transplant patient at the UAB Comprehensive Transplant Institute (CTI).

“I started taking cough drops for a minor sore throat,” he says. “Then one day, when I was doing rounds before my shift, I became weak and had shortness of breath.”

Many young adults create TikTok videos, but Jessica Hernandez may be the only 20-year-old who has used the social media platform to document her heart-lung transplant journey.

UAB Medicine clinicians take pride in the excellent care they provide for patients and families. In 2020, employees Kacy and Daniel Tucker got an up-close view of that care – this time from the patient side. An organ transplant surgery and the premature birth of their child at the same time are not what the Tuckers would have planned, but the family now reports good outcomes for both experiences.

Surgeons with the University of Alabama at Birmingham Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine reached an institutional milestone in February, surpassing 16,000 total organ transplants performed since its first almost 54 years ago.