Highlights: Eurotransplant Annual Meeting

Last month, I had the opportunity to attend the EuroTransplant Annual Meeting 2025 in Sassenheim, the Netherlands, together with GenDx Sales & Application Specialist, Daan ’t Hart. As someone working at GenDx, a company specialized in HLA typing, it was a great experience to broaden my view and gain deeper insights into other crucial parts of the organ transplantation process. While HLA typing is essential for matching patients with suitable donors, it is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to a successful transplantation.

While high-resolution HLA typing is essential for matching donors with recipients, it’s just one part of the larger transplant puzzle. The meeting highlighted several other critical aspects.

Highlights from the Eurotransplant Annual Meeting:

  • Organ preservation and transportation: I was impressed to learn about the new technologies and machines being developed to keep organs in optimal condition during transit. These innovations are essential in maximizing the chances of a successful transplants.
  • Donor registration systems and data exchange: Equally important are user-friendly donor registration systems and secure data exchange between countries and institutions. All while ensuring compliance with GDPR regulations.

A particularly exciting topic for me was the ongoing research into optimizing assays—making them faster, cost-effective, and more accurate. In transplantation, time is everything, and the need for high-resolution HLA typing is becoming increasingly important.

That is why we were especially proud to see Maastricht UMC present impressive results using GenDx’s NGS-Turbo. This presentation made a compelling case for adopting high-resolution typing in deceased donor scenarios.

All in all, the EuroTransplant Meeting offered a valuable and inspiring look at the bigger picture. It reinforced the need for ongoing collaboration across disciplines: from laboratory work to logistics and data management.

Together, these efforts are shaping the future of transplantation, helping to save more lives, and ultimately supporting GenDx’s mission to improve the quality of life and survival of transplant patients.

– Doret van Muilekom, Technical Support Specialist at GenDx