Matching markets and organ transplantation at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome on Monday

 I'm traveling this weekend to help inaugurate  the celebration of the 90th anniversary of Italy's Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Higher Institute of Health).  Below is their press release, which also notes that my talk will mark the 20th anniversary of the publication of my paper with Tayfun Sonmez and Utku Unver:

Roth, Alvin E., Tayfun Sonmez, and M. Utku Unver, "Kidney Exchange," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 119, 2, May, 2004, 457-488

Nobel Prize winner Alvin Roth opens the series of conferences dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the ISS

"Thanks to his work, 'crossover' kidney transplants are possible; next May 6th lectio magistralis in person and streaming.

"The cycle of scientific conferences that the Istituto Superiore di Sanità dedicates to the 90th anniversary of its foundation begins with a lectio magistralis by the Nobel Prize winner for economics Alvin Roth. On May 6th at 12.30 pm, Professor Roth, whose work has paved the way for the possibility of carrying out crossed kidney transplants between incompatible couples, will hold a keynote address entitled "Matching markets and organ transplantation".

"Exactly 20 years ago, in May 2004, Roth published "Kidney Exchange" in the Quarterly Journal of Economics (the oldest economic studies journal in the United States), the article in which the scholar exposed his "matching theory" by applying it to problem of compatibility between donor and recipient in living kidney transplantation and the need to find a sufficient number of donors for patients waiting for an organ. Roth demonstrated mathematically that, by cross-referencing the immunological data of all couples in which a healthy person wants to donate a kidney to a sick family member but cannot do so due to lack of compatibility, all patients could receive the organ they need. For his studies on stable allocations, defined by the Royal Swedish Academy as "a masterpiece of economic engineering", Roth was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2012.

"Starting from that first algorithm developed by Roth, today cross-kidney transplant programs between incompatible couples (called "crossover") have become a reality in many countries around the world: in Italy 132 transplants of this type have been carried out so far thanks to crossing of 85 pairs of donors and recipients, as part of a complex clinical and logistical program managed by the National Transplant Center which has so far involved 20 different hospitals. In 2023 alone there were 17 crossover transplants, of which 2 were carried out thanks to international exchange programmes: the first, last June, performed in Padua thanks to the crossing with two other Spanish couples, one in Bilbao and one in Barcelona, and the second in Vicenza, with an exchange organized with the Porto hospital.

"Professor Roth will hold his dissertation at the invitation of the National Transplant Center, the Galilean School of Higher Studies and the Department of Economic and Business Sciences of the University of Padua, the university at which the Stanford University economist will continue his series of conferences in Italy. The event, which will be held in the Pocchiari Hall of the Higher Institute of Health starting from 12.30, will be attended by Rocco Bellantone (president of the ISS), Giuseppe Feltrin (director of the National Transplant Center), Antonio Nicolò (professor of Economic Theory at the University of Padua) and Lucrezia Furian ( responsible for the Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Surgery Unit - Department of Surgical, Oncological and Gastroenterological Sciences of the University Hospital of Padua).

"It will be possible to follow the event in person (the request for accreditation can be made to ufficio.stampa@iss.it) and in streaming on the Institute's home page."