News & Events: John P. Roberts, M.D.

"The closure of public spaces during the Covid-19 pandemic has led to the cancellation of thousands of community blood drives — a major source of blood for hospitals. The United States is at risk for a secondary public health crisis if a continuous pipeline of community donations is not reestablished. At University of California San Francisco (UCSF), a multidisciplinary group formed to plan and execute a series of emergency blood drives with new protocols to minimize risk of Covid-19 transmission. The working group included UCSF medical students, senior faculty, health system leadership, [...]

UCSF News reports on a just published study in the The New England Journal of Medicine in which mild hypothermia in deceased organ donors was found to significantly reduce delayed graft function in kidney transplant recipients compared with normal body temperature. The lead author of the study is Claus Niemann, MD, Professor of Anesthesia and Surgery at UCSF, and co-Director of the Ischemic Organ Injury Lab. The findings in the study could lead to an increase in the availability of kidneys for transplant. Mild hypothermia in deceased organ donors significantly reduces delayed graft [...]

UCSF News reports on the award of a $2 million grant by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to a team led by Claus Niemann, MD, Associate Professor in the UCSF Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care and co-Director of the Ischemic Organ Injury Lab to improve outcomes in organ donor transplantation.  The grant was awarded to Niemann and his collaborators including John Feiner, MD, as well as Ryutaro Hirose, MD, and John Roberts, MD, chief of the UCSF Transplant Service. Also collaborating on the project are the California Transplant Donor Network and Darren [...]

"Previously, Uruguay had tried to go it alone, but high mortality rates soon caused doctors to shut the program down. After their initial visit, the UCSF transplant team, including anesthesiologist Claus U. Niemann, MD (pictured first), and surgeons Ryutaro Hirose, MD (pictured second), and Peter Stock, MD, PhD, (pictured third) continued to consult with the team in Uruguay, guiding them through everything from patient selection procedures to the use of immunosuppressive medications following surgery. When it came time for Uruguayan doctors to conduct their first liver transplant [...]

UCSF News reports on the the difficult choices that patients, families and doctors face because of the shortage of donated organs for transplantation. A difficult conundrum for the nation's transplant patients was aired September 22 when the news program California Connected featured UCSF's Liver Transplant Program. The story, produced by Jon Dann for public television stations KQED and KCET, highlights the difficult choices that patients, families and doctors face because of the shortage of donated organs for transplantation. Reporter Bob Jimenez pointed out that this shortage in one [...]