The American Heart Association (AHA) announced Monday the launch of its first-ever heart transplant research network, a multi-institutional initiative designed to fundamentally transform how heart transplant care is delivered across the United States. The network includes 14 medical research centers and a coordinating center, bringing together scientists from around the country to create a unified data, research, and quality care infrastructure to improve heart transplant outcomes.
According to the AHA’s 2026 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics, about 4,500 heart transplantations were performed in the U.S. in the most recent year, the highest number ever. However, more than 3,700 people remained on the waiting list in 2025, highlighting a persistent gap between supply and demand.
“Despite decades of breakthrough advances in cardiovascular medicine, the system supporting heart transplantation has remained largely unchanged,” said Mariell Jessup, M.D., FAHA, the chief science and medical officer of the AHA. “Today, transplant recipients still face serious challenges, including difficulty detecting heart rejection early, reliance on immunosuppressive therapies that have seen little advancement over the past 20 years and inconsistent outcomes, especially among Black patients and children.”
The initiative addresses several critical shortcomings in current heart transplant care, including fragmented data systems, limited research investment, and a lack of standardized quality improvement efforts. Many clinical guidelines remain based on expert consensus rather than robust, evolving evidence. The new effort aims to foster collaboration across institutions, generate actionable data, and ensure that advances reach all people equitably.
The network will focus on three key pillars. First, a global heart transplant data infrastructure will be developed in collaboration with leading transplant organizations. Unlike traditional registries, this dynamic, harmonized platform will enable real-time insights to support research, quality improvement, and policy advancement.
Second, a research network for breakthrough science will bring together top institutions to advance care in areas such as earlier and more precise detection of transplant rejection, remote monitoring technologies, viral surveillance to manage infection risks, and development of safer, more effective therapies. The network will also support planning grants to accelerate clinical trials and advance research into immune tolerance and chronic rejection.
Third, a coordinated path forward, modeled after the AHA’s Get With The Guidelines® program, will establish a scalable quality improvement framework to standardize care, advance accessibility to transplants, and improve long-term outcomes.
The four-year research grants begin July 1, 2026. The coordinating center will be led by Emilia Bagiella, Ph.D., a professor of biostatistics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Other centers include Baylor College of Medicine, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Columbia University, Duke University School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Medical University of South Carolina, Stanford University, University of California San Diego, University of Colorado Denver, University of Pennsylvania, University of Utah, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
For patients and families, this initiative represents hope for safer treatments, more personalized care, and better long-term outcomes. “By bringing together this exceptional data, research and clinical expertise, the Heart Association can help accelerate discoveries and translate them into better care for every patient, no matter who they are or where they live,” Jessup said.
The AHA has funded more than $6.1 billion in cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and brain health research since 1949, making it the largest non-profit, non-government supporter of heart and brain health research in the U.S. The new network underscores the organization’s commitment to modernizing heart transplant care and addressing long-standing inequities.
