Arthur Matas
University of Minnesota, MN·Medicine & Clinical Research
People who donate a kidney to a patient undergo major surgery and then live with a single kidney. Older studies comparing donors with the general population found no long-term harm, but newer studies using healthy comparison groups reported higher risks of kidney failure, heart disease and death.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
living kidney donation
living donors
kidney transplantation
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2028
What they work on
- Compare the long-term risk of end-stage kidney disease (ESKD, kidney failure requiring dialysis or transplant) and death between living kidney donors and healthy matched controls from the Rochester Epidemiology Project, with over 40 years of follow-up.
- Compare donors and controls for intermediate events that come before kidney failure or death, such as declining kidney function and cardiovascular disease, using survey data and linked national registries.
- Test how known risk factors, including family history of kidney disease and smoking, and new diseases arising after donation, such as diabetes, change long-term risk for donors.
- Determine how kidney donation affects later pregnancies by comparing pregnancy complications in donors and matched controls.
More about the research
Those studies had weaknesses: the comparison people were born in different years, lived elsewhere, were not confirmed healthy at the time of donation, and were not matched for family history of kidney disease. Follow-up was also short. Accurate long-term risk data matter for informed consent and for planning donors' lifelong care.
Why it matters
People considering kidney donation, and the doctors who counsel them, need trustworthy numbers on long-term risk. By comparing donors to carefully matched healthy non-donors over more than 40 years, this work could improve informed consent for future donors and guide follow-up care for current donors, including those who later develop diabetes or become pregnant.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Daniel Brennan
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine how donor APOL1 genotype affects time to graft failure, kidney function decline, acute rejection and proteinuria in recipients of kidneys from African American donors.
Laura Siminoff
Temple University, PA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Identify which provider communication behaviors during transplant evaluation consultations lead to living-donor inquiries, evaluations and transplants, using audio-recorded visits for 120 patients and pre- and post-visit surveys.
Mariana Murea
Wake Forest University, NC·Medicine & Clinical Research
Compare catheter-free dialysis days, access-related infections and deaths after fistula versus graft placement in a randomized trial of 262 hemodialysis patients aged 65 and older at 6 sites.
The school
University of Minnesota: 88 labs on PI Pages, $1.4B a year on research, 722 research doctorates a year.
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