Facing up to face transplants: Pioneering transplants and their pioneering patients

The history of transplantation involves not only pioneering surgeons, but also pioneering patients.  Face transplants are yet another complex case. 

 The Guardian has this (skeptical) story:

Face transplants promised hope. Patients were put through the unthinkableTwenty years after the first face transplant, patients are dying, data is missing, and the experimental procedure’s future hangs in the balance   Fay Bound Alberti 

"On 27 November 2005, Isabelle received the world’s first face transplant at University Hospital, CHU Amiens-Picardie, in northern France. The surgery was part of an emerging field called vascularized composite allotransplantation (VCA), that transplants parts of the body as a unit: skin, muscle, bone and nerves.

...

"The case for face transplants seemingly made, several teams scrambled to perform their nation’s first. The US saw the first partial face transplant (2008), then the first full one (2011); the first African American recipient (2019); the first face and double hand transplant combined (2020); the first to include an eye (2023). There have been about 50 face transplants to date, and each milestone brought new grants, donations and prestige for the doctors and institutions involved.

...

"Add to this picture a set of ethical challenges: face transplants take otherwise healthy people with disfigured faces and turn them into lifetime patients.

...

"In the US, now the world’s leader in face transplants, the Department of Defense has bankrolled most operations, treating them as a frontier for wounded veterans while private insurers refuse to cover the costs.

"With insurance unwilling to pay until the field proves its worth, surgeons have been eager to show results. A 2024 JAMA Surgery study reported five-year graft survival of 85% and 10-year survival of 74%, concluding that these outcomes make face transplantation “an effective reconstructive option for patients with severe facial defects”.

"Yet patients like Dallas tell a different story. The study measures survival, but not other outcomes such as psychological wellbeing, impact on intimacy, social life and family functioning, or even comparisons with reconstruction. 

...

"It’s a double-bind. Without proof of success, face transplants are experimental. And because the procedures are experimental, patients’ long-term needs aren’t covered by grants, leaving patients to carry the burden

...

"Which path will face transplants take? The numbers are already slipping – fewer procedures since the 2010s as outcomes falter and budgets shrink. And unless the field raises its standards, enforces rigorous follow-up, and commits to transparent, systematic data sharing that actually includes patients and their families, there’s no way to demonstrate real success. Without that, face transplants aren’t headed for evolution or stability; they’re headed straight for the dustbin of medical history." 

Congestion and signaling in the job market, as the ratio of applications to positions continues to rise

 Aki Ito, at Business Insider, writes about how the number of job applications per position is growing, and how there's some exploratory use of signaling of interest through job sites that allow a small number of such signals.

How tech broke the job market
Applying to a job in 2025 is the statistical equivalent of hurling your resume into a black hole. By Aki Ito

"To see how bad it's gotten, I asked Greenhouse, one of the leading providers of hiring software, to take a look at their data. Last quarter, the average job opening received 242 applications — nearly triple the amount in 2017, when the unemployment rate was at a comparable level.

 

"Nobody's happy with the current situation," says Greenhouse CEO Daniel Chait. "Something broke in the technology." 

"This isn't the first time a market's grown so overcrowded it stopped functioning. Economists even have a name for it: congestion. Big markets hold the promise of creating better matches, but they also tend to devolve into total chaos.

"Congestion is the bane of a lot of markets," says Alvin Roth, a Nobel Prize-winning economist at Stanford who's helped design programs to better match students with schools, organ donors with patients, and hospitals with new doctors. "Successful marketplaces have to fight hard to defeat congestion."

...

"The forces that make it cheap to send more applications are working faster than the forces that allow you to quickly process many applications," says Roth. "We're deep into congestion."

...

[There is] "a new website where candidates can manage their applications to Greenhouse's clients. There, it introduced a feature called Dream Job, which lets people mark one application a month as a job they especially want. The idea is that recruiters don't just want qualified applicants. They want to know — amid the sea of people applying with a single click — who's actually serious enough that they'd likely accept an offer.

"Online daters might recognize the concept as the "rose" on Hinge or the "super like" on Tinder — gestures borrowed from a landmark study in market design. Dream Job launched in June, and the early data is promising: Employers have been five times more likely to hire Dream Job applicants than standard ones.

"Other intermediaries of the job market are trying their own fixes. LinkedIn, for instance, introduced its own "rose," called Top Choice, to its premium members (Top Choice candidates, the platform says, are 43% more likely to get a recruiter message). It also shows people whether they're a high, medium, or low match for the roles they view ("try exploring other jobs," it gently advises low-match candidates). And this year it's been testing daily limits on Easy Apply submissions."
 

Modern warfare: going into battle with laptops

 Defense One has the story

How the Army’s most tech-forward units are practicing for war
A two-week exercise simulated island battles—and put some 75 new technologies to the test. By Jennifer Hlad 

"The exercise involved 75 experiments and incorporated every U.S. service branch plus seven partner nations. It kicked off with soldiers from the 11th Airborne Division’s 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team flying from Alaska to the island of Hawaii, where they parachuted into a training area with close-air support from the Hawaii Air National Guard. It included a nighttime long-range maritime air assault mission and another mission that flew four HIMARS aboard C-17s from Hawaii to Wake Island, unloaded them for a simulated raid, and then flew them back again.

...

"Hours before they watched the simulated enemy attack, Mingus and Bartholomees climbed into a Black Hawk helicopter at Fort Shafter, flying over mountains and pineapple fields to reach the Kahuku training area. There, standing next to a new infantry squad vehicle draped in camouflage netting, a captain in wrap-around sunglasses and a fighting load carrier reported that the vehicle was able to produce enough power to charge multiple laptops, drones, Starlink receivers, and more for two weeks without “any outside sustainment.” 

The abrupt demise of the AMA Journal of Ethics

Medical ethics is full of twists and turns, so it is perhaps fitting that the American Medical Association killed its Journal of Ethics, without explanation, in an abrupt announcement in its November issue that the December issue would be the last issue. 

From the Editor in Chief, AMA Journal of Ethics, Nov 2025
Breaking Bad News, Audiey C. Kao, MD, PhD

"For over a quarter of a century, the AMA Journal of Ethics has striven to publish insightful commentaries, engaging podcasts, and provocative artwork that help medical students, physicians, and all health care professionals reflect on and make sound ethical decisions in service to patients and society. I write to inform you that the AMA Journal of Ethics will cease publishing new content after December 2025. Understandably, this news will be sad and unexpected for the journal’s readers and supporters. I share in this loss.

"Previously published content will be maintained on the journal’s website and remain freely available to all in keeping with our guiding premise that ethics inquiry is a public good. With humility, I am hopeful and confident that this archived journal content will stay evergreen for years to come. "

######

Here's an article in MedpageToday, mourning the demise of the journal in a way that appears to have left authors of forthcoming articles in the lurch:

In Memoriam: The Sudden Demise of the AMA Journal of Ethics
— A great loss for physicians, the profession, and the public
by Matthew Wynia, MD, MPH, and Kayhan Parsi, JD, PhD

"without warning, the American Medical Association (AMA) announced that it would cease publishing AMA JoE after the December 2025 issue. Journals like AMA JoE operate a year or more in advance, so multiple authors and editors of upcoming issues for 2026-2027 were left in the lurch by this unexpected announcement. Students and trainees are now scrambling to find new homes for their articles, some of which have already undergone extensive editorial review."
 

Illicit organ trade, in Nigeria and elsewhere

 Here's an article about organ (kidney) trafficking, by a Nigerian physician, which has a good account of the background of the Nigerian citizen who was convicted in England of organ trafficking. (It's in an interesting looking journal that I hadn't previously heard of...)

Akpen, Nater Paul. "The illicit Organ Trade: Biographical, Anatomical, Economic and Legal Aspects." Journal of Academics Stand Against Poverty 6, no. 1 (2025): 86-102. 

Abstract:"A kidney can cost up to $ 200,000. Humans have two kidneys but normally require just one to live. Individuals can donate one to relatives for altruistic reasons. But to pay $200,000 - or any other amount - to obtain a kidney, no country in the world allows that. Except for Iran. This global blanket ban has pushed the trade of organs underground and it now ranks as the fourth most lucrative illegal activity – behind only drugs, arms, and human trafficking. Rising incidence of end-stage kidney disease will increase demand for replacement kidneys, both gifted and bought. This essay studies this trade using two case studies, one of a Nigerian leading legislator arrested in the UK for getting a kidney for his daughter and another on kidney demand in Iran where trade in organs is permitted. The global value of the trade is studied, and literature gaps are discussed. The inadequacies of the current system are highlighted and improvements suggested, based on best practices around the world."

 

And here's the concluding paragraph:

"Organ trade should be legalized. Governments, in collaboration with professional medical bodies, should be the sole regulator. For deceased donations, there should be an opt out system that would be set in place after a sweeping enlightenment campaign on the system and the need for organs. There should be a fixed uniform national pay to donors (or their next of kins). There should be no cross-border trade. "

 

Magic staircase

 Staircase technology is moving fast:

 

 

 

Philippe Aghion interview in the Financial Times

The FT has lunch with Philippe Aghion:

  Economist Philippe Aghion: ‘Macron’s legacy will be better than people think’
France’s new Nobel laureate on stimulating growth, the power of creative destruction — and why Karl Lagerfeld helped him with his homework by Ian Johnston

    “I would see politicians articulating economic reasonings and getting to opposite conclusions,” he recalls. “That’s how I came to economics. I need to understand the world to transform the world: that was my motivation.”
,,,

“Zucman would kill Mistral,” he says. “France just becomes a Camembert country. We’d just produce Camembert, which is great, but no more AI.”

,,,
     “I push the young people with me to be better than me,” he says. “That’s why I chose creative destruction, because the day I become obsolete, it validates the theory.”

 

Viewpoint diversity on swastikas and vaccines: one close call and one further descent

The canary was revived after being found gasping for breath in the coal mine...

The Washington Post reports this morning:

In reversal, Coast Guard again classifies swastikas, nooses as hate symbols By Hari Raj and Victoria Bisset
 

"The U.S. Coast Guard issued a new, more stringent policy on hate symbols including the swastika Thursday night, prohibiting “divisive or hate symbols or flags.”  

 Here's the WaPo's story from yesterday: 

U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify swastikas, nooses as hate symbols 

"Though the Coast Guard is not part of the Defense Department, the service has been reworking its policies to align with the Trump administration’s changing tolerances for hazing and harassment within the U.S. military. In September, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed a review and overhaul of those policies, calling the military’s existing standards “overly broad” and saying they jeopardize troops’ combat readiness." 

########

But viewpoint diversity is alive and well at the CDC: see this from Statnews

Under RFK Jr., CDC reverses course on stance that vaccines don’t cause autism
It’s the latest move by Kennedy and his allies to raise doubts about childhood shots  By Chelsea Cirruzzo, Helen Branswell, and Daniel PayneNov 

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday publicly reversed its stance that vaccines do not cause autism, over the objections of career staff and counter to years of scientific evidence." 

Organ procurement centers (OPOs) are responding to changes in their performance evaluations (by Bae, Sweat, Melcher and Ashlagi in JAMA Surgery)

 Here

Bae H, Sweat KR, Melcher ML, Ashlagi I. Organ Procurement Following the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Performance Evaluations. JAMA Surg. Published online November 19, 2025. doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2025.5074 

"In 2024, 4639 patients died in the United States while waiting for a transplant from deceased donors.1 Organ procurement organizations (OPOs) are government contractors responsible for identifying potential donors in a geographical region, recovering their organs, and implementing the offering processes to patients on the waiting list. In 2020, 10% of potential donors—individuals younger than 76 years with inpatient death and organs suitable for transplant—became organ donors, suggesting an opportunity to increase donation and transplant rates.2

"Toward this goal, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a final rule in December 2020 to increase transparency of OPO performances by monitoring several metrics. OPOs are placed into 3 tiers based on donation rate and donor age–adjusted transplant rates, although acceptance of organ offers is up to patients and transplant centers. OPOs that perform poorly on both metrics are placed into tier 3 and are at risk of decertification in 2026.3 This longitudinal study examines changes in OPOs’ organ recovery practices following the initial report released in September 2021, focusing on the number and quality of organs recovered and the resulting transplant rates. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 "The findings suggest that the 2021 release of the report on OPO performance was associated with increased organ recovery among low-performing OPOs, narrowing the gap in organ donation with high-performing OPOs. Even though the gap in the transplant rate has narrowed, much of it is linked to increased organ recovery from older donors, which may limit improvements in transplant rates. This is despite an increase in organs placed out of sequence by low-performing OPOs."

MATCH-UP 2026, Paris 1-3 July, 2026, call for papers

 

MATCH-UP 2026

8th International Workshop on Matching Under Preferences

NYU Paris, Paris, France

1-3 July, 2026

MATCH-UP is a series of interdisciplinary and international workshops on matching under preferences. The remit of these workshops is to explore matching problems with preferences from the perspective of algorithms and complexity discrete mathematics, combinatorial optimization, game theory mechanism design and economics, and thus a key objective is to bring together the research communities of the related areas. Another important aim is to convey the excitement of recent research and new application areas, exposing participants to new ideas, new techniques, and new problems.

List of Topics

The matching problems under consideration include, but are not limited to:

• Two-sided matchings involving agents on both sides (e.g., college admissions, medical resident allocation, job markets, and school choice)
• Two-sided matchings involving agents and objects (e.g., house allocation, course allocation, project allocation, assigning papers to reviewers, and school choice)
• One-sided matchings (e.g., roommate problems, coalition formation games, and kidney exchange)
• Multi-dimensional matchings (e.g., 3D stable matching problems)
• Matching with payments (e.g., assignment game)
• Online and stochastic matching models (e.g., Google Ads, ride sharing, Match.com)
• Other recent applications (e.g., refugee resettlement, food banks, social housing, and daycare)

Invited speakers:
Itai Ashlahi – Stanford University
Irene Lo – Stanford MSE
Rebecca Reiffenhäuser – University of Amsterdam

Dates:
Submission deadline: February 15, 2026.
Notification: April 15, 2026.
Final registration: June 1, 2026

Organizers: CREST, ERC MADPART, Ecole polytechnique

 

Artificial intelligence and the future of Wikipedia

 Jimmy Wales, interviewed in the Guardian:

‘People thought I was a communist doing this as a non-profit’: is Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales the last decent tech baron?  by David Shariatmadari 

"Musk’s hostility aside, does Wales see artificial intelligence in general as a threat? If people are increasingly relying on AI summaries, might Wikipedia’s dominance turn out to have been a blip? “I don’t think so,” he says, “but, I mean, that’s obviously on a lot of people’s minds these days.” It would be ironic, given that the site’s free licensing model means it can be used by anyone for anything – including as training data for large language models. “There are definitely threats to the web, but they’re not necessarily coming from AI,” he says. “I think the bigger threat is the rise of authoritarianism, governments, regulations, which make it harder to have a truly open global web where people are free to share ideas.” It’s true that Wikipedia is blocked in China, and faces sporadic censorship in Russia and elsewhere. Wales’s stance on this is not to give an inch – he has said: “We have a very firm policy, never breached, to never cooperate with government censorship in any region of the world.” 

Physicians are now more likely employed than in private practice, and AMA membership has correspondingly declined

 Medpage Today has the story:

Medical Societies Are Facing an Existential Crisis
— It's time to adapt to the employed physician era
by Hemant Kalia MD, MPH, Mark Adams, MD, MBA, and David Jakubowicz, MD 

 

"According to the American Medical Association (AMA), 2020 marked the first time that fewer than half (49.1%) of physicians worked in doctor-owned practices since their tracking began. By 2022, that number had fallen further to 46.7%, down from 60% a decade earlier. Meanwhile, the share of physicians employed by hospitals and health systems has expanded sharply -- from about 29% of physicians in 2012 to more than 40% in 2022. Private equity ownership, virtually absent in previous decades, now accounts for roughly 5% of physician employment. 

...

" this employment transformation has disrupted the very institutions meant to represent physicians. Nationally, AMA membership has plunged from about 75% of U.S. physicians in the 1950s to just 15% today. State and county medical societies mirror this pattern, facing shrinking memberships, aging leadership, and limited engagement among younger doctors.

"Specialty societies have filled much of that vacuum. Groups like the American College of Physicians, the American College of Surgeons, and the American Academy of Family Physicians have seen significant growth over the past few decades. 

The Union of Concerned Scientists celebrates the NSF

 The Union of Concerned Scientists reminds us of some of many things government support of science has contributed to:

What Do Duolingo, The Magic School Bus, and James Bond Have in Common? The US National Science Foundation 

"Its story begins with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who during World War II recognized the decisive role that scientific research played in national success. As the war ended, Roosevelt envisioned a way to carry that same scientific energy into peacetime; to support knowledge not just for defense, but for discovery. This vision became law under President Harry S. Truman in 1950 with the National Science Foundation Act , establishing a federal agency devoted to “promoting the progress of science” and “advancing the national health, prosperity, and welfare.” 

"Today, NSF accounts for only 0.1% of federal spending but supports roughly a quarter of all federally funded basic research at US colleges and universities. And that research underpins many of the everyday technologies we rely on. 

"75 Years of benefits for the American public 
Ever watch The Magic School Bus or Bill Nye the Science Guy? Those Millennial science classics were funded by NSF. When your local meteorologist points to a Doppler radar image tracking storms or hurricanes, that technology too has NSF roots. If you’ve ever undergone an MRI scan, used American Sign Language (ASL) resources, or benefited from a kidney exchange program, NSF funding helped make those possible."

...

and much more at the link...  

Judd Kessler: the most helpful advice I ever got (YouTube short video)

 I was charmed by this very short video featuring Judd Kessler (and I'm very grateful to whoever gave him that advice):

 

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/zBTlYwvYE2M?si=q6_vRIflWvAmMDYb 

 

 

 

 

You can see his new book, Lucky By Design in the background 

“Lucky by Design is that rarest of things: an economics PAGE-TURNER.” —Lin-Manuel Miranda 

Nikhil Agarwal Wins Infosys Prize 2025

 From Inomics:

Nikhil Agarwal (MIT) Wins Infosys Prize 2025 for Groundbreaking Work in Market Design 

13 November 2025

Recognising innovation in the field of economics, the Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) has awarded the prestigious Infosys Prize 2025 in Economics to Nikhil Agarwal, the Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Nikhil Agarwal's pioneering contributions to market design have set new standards in empirical studies for allocation mechanisms, affecting critical areas such as school choice, medical residency, and kidney exchanges, and make him a worthy winner of the 2025 Infosys Prize in Economics.

The selection of Agarwal comes as part of the ISF's initiative to promote early-career researchers by honoring individuals under 40 years of age. This shift, introduced in 2024, underscores the foundation's commitment to recognizing and nurturing talent that shapes the future of scholarship and innovation. 

Agarwal's research addresses complex "matching problems," scenarios where traditional market principles fall short. His work elucidates how individuals seeking vital resources—like patients in need of kidney transplants or students aiming for college admission—can be systematically matched through innovative market design techniques. By anchoring his theories in empirical data, Agarwal provides profound insights that have the potential to influence policy design and enhance societal welfare. 

The Infosys Prize is renowned for being one of the most significant awards in India, which not only honors excellence but also fosters a scientific culture that drives innovation across multiple disciplines. Each laureate receives a gold medal, a citation, and a prize purse of USD 100,000, along with international recognition, often leading to further prestigious awards. 

 

Ethical considerations and global cooperaton in transplantation, Wednesday in Cairo

It's Wednesday morning in Cairo, and here's today's conference schedule, which will include discussion of (and voting on) global cooperation in transplantation. (See my earlier post for context.) 

 

8:00 AM 08:30 AM	Opening Session of Ethical Consensus Global Consensus on Emerging Ethical Frontiers in Transplantation: Innovations & Global Collaboration	HALL A
Strategic Co-Leaders (Alphabetical)	Alvin E. Roth (Stanford University, USA) John Fung (University of Chicago, USA) Mark Ghobrial (Methodist Hospital, Houston, USA) Osama A Gaber (Methodist Hospital, Houston, USA) Sandy Feng (UCSF, USA) Valeria Mas (University of Maryland, USA)
Chairs (Alphabetical)	Ahmed Elsabbagh (University of Pittsburgh, USA) Medhat Askar (Baylor University, USA) Mohamed Ghaly (Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar) Mohamed Hussein (National Guard Hospital, KSA)
Scientific Committee (Alphabetical)	Abdul Rahman Hakeem (King’s College Hospital, UK) Dieter Broering (KFSHRC, KSA) Hermien Hartog (Groningen, the Netherlands) Hosam Hamed (Mansoura University, Egypt) Manuel Rodriguez (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico) Matthew Liao (Center for Bioethics, New York University, USA) Nadey Hakim (King’s College, Dubai, UAE) Stefan Tullius (Harvard Medical School, USA) Varia Kirchner (Stanford University, USA) Wojciech Polak (Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands)
Leadership of Jury Committee (Alphabetical)	Chair: John Fung (University of Chicago, USA) Vice-Chairs Hatem Amer (Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA) Lloyd Ratner (Columbia University, USA) Maye Hassaballa (Cairo University, Egypt)
08:30 AM 09:30 AM	State of Art Lecture (1, 2)	HALL A
Chairpersons (Alphabetical)	Mahmoud El-Meteini (Ain Shams University, Egypt) Mehmet Haberal (Baskent University, Turkey) Sandy Feng (UCSF, USA)
08:30 AM 09:00 AM	From Dr. Starzl to the Future: The Evolution of Transplantation and the Call to Continue the Journey John Fung (University of Chicago, USA)
09:00 AM 09:30 AM	Organ Transplant Ethics: How Technoscientific Developments Challenge Us to Reaffirm the Status of the Human Body so as to Navigate Innovation in a Responsible Manner Hub A.E. Zwart (Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands)
09:30 AM 11:00 AM	Working Group 1:	HALL A
Chairpersons (Alphabetical)	Ali Alobaidli (Chairman of UAE National transplant committee) Hermien Hartog (Groningen, The Netherlands) Khalid Amer (Military Medical Academy, Egypt) Lloyd Ratner (Columbia University, NY, USA) Thomas Müller (University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland)
09:30 AM 09:50 AM	Keynote Lecture: Xenotransplantation: Scientific Milestones, Clinical Trials, Risks, and Opportunities Jay Fishman (MGH, USA)
09:50 AM 11:00 AM	WG1 Presentation & Panel Voting Matthew Liao (Center for Bioethics, New York University, USA) Hosam Hamed (Mansoura University, Egypt) Daniel fogal (New York University, USA)
11:00 AM 11:30 AM	Coffee Break
11:30 AM 01:00 PM	Working Group 2:	HALL A
Chairpersons (Alphabetical)	Daniel Maluf (University of Maryland, USA) Karim Soliman (University of Pittsburgh, USA) Marleen Eijkholt (Leiden University Medical Centre, Netherlands) Refaat Kamel (Ain Shams University, Egypt) Varia Krichner (Stanford University, USA)
11:30 AM 11:50 AM	Keynote Lecture: Smart Transplant: How AI & Machine Learning Are Shaping the Future Dorry Segev (NYU Langone, USA)
11:50 AM 01:00 PM	WG2 Presentation & Panel Voting Hub A.E. Zwart (Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands) Varia Krichner (Stanford University, USA) Eman Elsabbagh (Duke University, USA) Mohammad Alexanderani (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
01:00 PM 02:30 PM	Working Group 3:	HALL A
Chairpersons (Alphabetical)	Ahmed Marwan (Mansoura University, Egypt) Ashraf S Abou El Ela (Michigan, USA) Mostafa El Shazly (Cairo University, Egypt) Peter Abt (UPenn, USA) Philipp Dutkowski (University Hospital Basel, Switzerland)
01:00 PM 01:20 PM	Keynote Lecture: Ischemia-Free Transplantation: A New Paradigm in Organ Preservation and Transplant Medicine Zhiyong Guo (The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, China)
01:20 PM 02:30 PM	WG3 Presentation & Panel Voting Jeffrey Pannekoek (Center for Bioethics, Cleveland Clinic, USA) Abdul Rahman Hakeem (King’s College Hospital, UK) Georgina Morley (Center for Bioethics, Cleveland Clinic, USA)
02:30 PM 03:30 PM	Lunch Symposium	HALL B
03:30 PM 05:00 PM	Working Group 4:	HALL A
Chairpersons (Alphabetical)	David Thomson (Cape Town University, South Africa) Lucrezia Furian (University Hospital of Padova, Italy) May Hassaballa (Cairo University, Egypt) Abidemi Omonisi (Ekiti State University, Nigeri) Vivek Kute (IKDRC-ITS, Ahmedabad, India)
03:30 PM 03:50 PM	Keynote Lecture: Framing the Conversation: Ethical considerations at the foundation for global transplant collaboration Marleen Eijkholt (Leiden University Medical Centre, Netherlands)
03:50 PM 05:00 PM	WG4 Presentation & Panel Voting Alvin Roth (Stanford University, USA) Marleen Eijkholt (Leiden University Medical Centre, Netherlands) Michael Rees (University of Toledo, USA) Ahmed Elsabbagh (University of Pittsburgh, USA) Nikolas Stratopoulos (Leiden University Medical Centre, Netherlands)
05:00 PM 05:30 PM	Closing Session of Ethical Consensus Global Consensus on Emerging Ethical Frontiers in Transplantation: Innovations & Global Collaboration	HALL A
Strategic Co-Leaders (Alphabetical)	Alvin E. Roth (Stanford University, USA) John Fung (University of Chicago, USA) Mark Ghobrial (Methodist Hospital, Houston, USA) Osama A Gaber (Methodist Hospital, Houston, USA) Sandy Feng (UCSF, USA) Valeria Mas (University of Maryland, USA)
Chairs (Alphabetical)	Ahmed Elsabbagh (University of Pittsburgh, USA) Medhat Askar (Baylor University, USA) Mohamed Ghaly (Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar)
05:10 PM 05:30 PM	State of Art Lecture (3): Reflections from a Transplant Pioneer: Ethics, Policy, and the Future of Global Collaboration Ignazio R. Marino (Thomas Jefferson University, Italy/USA)

 

Join the global call for change at DLE--Invitation to Cairo

  After being invited to this week's International Transplant Week in Egypt, , I was invited to invite others.

 (To hear my very brief invitation, which the conference published on Instagram, you may have to click on the speaker symbol in the lower right corner of the image.)

 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Folder Group (@foldermiddleeast)

 

Are transplants too scarce, or not scarce enough? A surprising debate about India

 India, now the most populous country in the world, does the third highest number of kidney transplants in the world (although their rate of transplantation per million population is quite low).  So transplants are nevertheless very scarce in India compared to the need, which is the situation worldwide.

Earlier this year, however, a paper by three veteran (non-Indian) transplant professionals who have headed large organizations expressed repugnance for the volume of transplants in India, and the fact that it depends mostly on living donor transplantation (LDT), suggesting it can be viewed as "both alarming and reprehensible."  Their paper's title makes it clear how they view it. 

Domínguez-Gil, Beatriz, Francis L. Delmonico, and Jeremy R. Chapman. "Organ transplantation in India: NOT for the common good." Transplantation 109, no. 2, February, 2025: 240-242. 

"The field of organ transplantation has evolved very differently across the world under the influence of different national healthcare financing systems. Healthcare is, in most countries, financed by taxation and thus through governmental budgets, in combination with private funds, mostly through contributory health insurance systems (eg, Australia, Canada, Europe, New Zealand, South America, and the United States). But across much of Asia, tertiary healthcare services, such as transplantation, are almost entirely dependent on the private finances of individuals. The impressive growth in Indian organ transplantation has been accomplished in for-profit hospitals, which have expanded Indian transplantation into 807 facilities, mostly associated with the major corporate hospital chains.6 Organ transplantation, in a part of the world where one-fifth of all people live, is thus largely not for the common good, but a treatment available for those with ample monetary resources." 

########## 

 This was followed by a firm rebuttal by distinguished Indian transplant professionals.  Their title makes their view equally clear:

Rela, Mohamed, Ashwin Rammohan, Vivek Kute, Manish R. Balwani, and Arpita Ray Chaudhury. "Organ Transplantation in India: INDEED, for the Common Good!." Transplantation 109, no. 6 (2025): e340-e342. 

 "We were deeply concerned by the article “Organ Transplantation in India: NOT for the Common Good” by Domínguez-Gil et al,  which we felt provided an unfairly critical view of the current state of organ transplantation in India. We aim to provide a point-by-point rebuttal based on actual figures and ground-reality rather than tabloid-press articles as cited by the authors.
 

"It is true that in the past 5 y, there has been an extraordinary growth in the number of transplantations in India (more than those achieved over several decades by European countries). While it is natural to be wary of this astronomical increase in transplant numbers, the authors’ assumption that this growth is likely nefarious reflects an outdated western mindset, rather than a true understanding of over 2 decades of massively coordinated effort by the Government of India, transplant professionals and all other stakeholders in the country. 

...

" The development of LDT has been presented with a negative connotation. This shows a scant understanding of the geo-socio-political idiosyncrasies prevalent in the Asian region, and unlike the west, its conventional dependence on LDT.

 ...

"The authors have further confused LDT and deceased donor transplantation with regards to foreigners having access to organs in India. The authors’ accusation of deceased donor organs being preferentially allocated to foreigner is presumptuous at best. The current organ allocation system under the aegis of the Government of India and state-wise organ transplant governing bodies is a very transparent process—and is reserved for Indian nationals.

...

" Transplant tourism being equated with organ commerce is erroneous, the authors’ fail to understand that many poor countries find India a more financially viable destination to get a transplant than countries in the west. Even affordable Governments in the middle east are moving to the east for transplantation, where the ministries have a direct tie-up with transplant units. 

"While it should be conceded that transplantation in India may not be available to all, true social upliftment necessitates broader initiatives beyond just immediate transplant availability: that of addressing poverty. Nonetheless, access to transplants for the underprivileged has greatly improved over the past decade. There are several public sector hospitals in the country that routinely provide transplantation services. In 2023, in the state of Tamil Nadu, 35.1% of all deceased donor renal transplants were performed for free in public sector hospitals (Table 1). 5 While traditionally, the private pay-from-pocket healthcare has been only for those with the resources, the central and several state governments (Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, etc) sponsor an all-inclusive healthcare state insurance for the poor, which includes transplantation at any approved private hospital in the state; which includes LDT.

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I'm on my way to a conference in Cairo that is motivated in part by concern that healthcare in low and middle income countries has been impeded by some of the international healthcare organizations' lack of understanding or empathy for their situations. 

Economics and CS (AI+ML) in Ithaca in June: call for papers

 Here's the announcement and call for papers from the Econometric Society

2026 ESIF Economics and AI+ML Meeting

June 16 - 17, 2026
Ithaca, United States

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2026 ESIF Economics and AI+ML Meeting (ESIF-AIML2026)

June 16-17, 2026
Cornell University Department of Computer Science and Department of Economics

We are pleased to announce the Economics and AI+ML of the Econometric Society Interdisciplinary Frontiers (ESIF) conferences. The 2026 ESIF Economics and AI+ML Meeting (ESIF-AIML2026) hosted by Cornell University Department of Computer Science, Department of Economics, and Center for Data Science for Enterprise and Society, will take place on June 16-17, 2026, in Ithaca, NY.

The Program Committee co-Chairs and host organizers are Francesca Molinari and Éva Tardos, from Cornell University.

Important dates

Submissions open: November 3, 2025
Paper Submission Period: November 3, 2025 – January 17, 2026
Decision Notification Deadline: March 22, 2026
Registration Period (for presenters) March 22, 2026-April 5, 2026
Preliminary Program Announcement: April 26, 2026

Plenary Lectures

David Blei
Columbia University

Mingming Chen
Google

Annie Liang
Northwestern University

Sendhil Mullainathan
MIT

Aaron Roth
University of Pennsylvania

Stefan Wager
Stanford University

 

 

Game theory in Brazil, July 26-Aug2: Call for papers

 Marilda Sotomayor forwards the following call for papers:

Game Theory scholar. 
It is a great pleasure to invite you to participate in the 4TH INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON GAME THEORY AND ECONOMIC APPLICATIONS, to be held at the University of São Paulo, from July 26 to August 2, 2026.
The workshop will offer the participants the opportunity to interact with some of the most prominent researchers in Game Theory. We expect to have over 340 participants, with a majority of young scholars and including 5 Nobel Laureates: Robert Aumann, Roger Myerson, Alvin Roth, Robert Wilson and Paul Milgrom. 
The week-long event will consist of minicourses, conferences and contributed papers sessions. The courses will start at an introductory level and will reach the frontiers of current research. Please direct questions to iwgtea2026@usp.br. 
To participate in the workshop, it is necessary to register on our website: https://www.iwgtea.fea.usp.br/, where you can also find more information on the conference. 
Limited financial aid for travel and accommodation expenses of up to 100 students or young researchers (who got his/her PhD in the last three years) will be provided. The candidate should refer to the information provided on our website. 
If you are interested in submitting a paper for presentation you should register on our website and submit it through the appropriate link. An extended abstract (up to 3 pages), or, if possible, a full paper, written in English, as well a short abstract (up to 200 words), are required. This paper will be made available for download on our website if your submission is accepted. Presentations should be made in English, the official language of the workshop. Acceptable formats for the files are PDF, PS and Word. Articles in all areas of Game Theory and its applications are welcome. 
 Please note that the deadline for paper submissions and remittance of the documents required to the young scholars is March 15, 2026. The selected candidates and articles will be announced by April 15, 2026. 
Early registration fee payment should be received by April 30, 2026. A late charge of 40% will be added after this date. Only those who have paid the registration fee by May 15, 2026, will be included in the program. The schedule of talks will be announced by the end of May.
We look forward to seeing you in São Paulo!
The Organizers
M. Sotomayor (USP), M. Bugarin (UNB), W. Maldonado (USP), R. Corbi (USP)