Anji Wall, MD, receives prestigious award from ASTS

Anji E. Wall, MD, PhD, FACS, an abdominal transplant surgeon on the medical staff at Baylor University Medical Center, has been named the recipient of the Rising Stars in Transplantation Surgery Award from the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS).

"This is a very well-deserved honor for Dr. Wall,” says Giuliano Testa, MD, MBA, FACS, chairman and chief of abdominal transplantation at Baylor Scott & White Annette C. and Harold C. Simmons Transplant Institute. “She is a strong leader and innovator who is keenly focused on advancing the field of transplantation for the benefit of our patients. We are pleased the ASTS recognizes the significance of her work."

In announcing the award, ASTS cited Dr. Wall’s research efforts to address ethical challenges in clinical transplantation. Her most recent focus has been on the use of normothermic regional perfusion (NRP) for donation after circulatory death (DCD). Baylor Scott & White Simmons Transplant Institute has been a leader in Texas in the use of DCD organs.

"In our practice, we focus mainly on the utilization of NRP, which is in situ oxygenated perfusion of the organs that are used for transplantation during the donor operation," Dr. Wall says. "The advantage of this technology is that it immediately reconditions the organs. Our awesome multidisciplinary team of thoracic surgeons, abdominal surgeons, ICU and OR staff, as well as the ECMO team, allows us to utilize NRP for any potential DCD donor at our facility. Some may be full donors, i.e., heart, lung, liver and kidney, while others may be abdominal-only donors."

According to the ASTS in their announcement, Dr. Wall has built strong foundational ethical arguments for the acceptability of NRP, as well as created a technique for studying national NRP outcomes from UNOS data. Dr. Wall was instrumental in the establishment of the CONCORD consortium for the advancement of research on NRP transplantation in the United States. She also helped develop national guidance for NRP through the ASTS.

"This award is in line with some of the recent recognitions that Dr. Wall has received in advancing the field, including The Alliance Visionary Leader Award, recent promotion to full professor at Texas A&M College of Medicine, as well as a councilor for the largest liver society, the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD)," says Sumeet Asrani, MD, MSc, chief of hepatology and liver transplantation at BSW Simmons Transplant Institute. “Her work has had a direct impact in increasing early and timely access for our patients on the waitlist who previously had to wait a long time to get a transplant. Currently, we are the second-fastest institution in Texas for getting a transplant and much of this is driven by the work that she has led.”

She was co-director of the ASTS-endorsed Abdominal NRP conference in Dallas, which drew more than 50 transplant centers and OPOs from across the United States and Canada. This conference generated the development of several new NRP programs.

Additionally, Dr. Wall is Vice Chair of Research at BSW Simmons Transplant Institute and the Medical Director of the BSW Transplant Center for Innovation, Science, Policy Research and Ethics (InSPIRE). Her vision for InSPIRE: to make transplantation better for patients, providers, and society.