Who we are

Guided by Amy Waterman, PhD, Explore Transplant is a national consortium of the leading experts in transplant and health literacy, who have come together to ensure that transplant patients and living donors can make informed treatment choices. Explore Transplant's educational resources include educational videos, animated coaching applications, online resources, print materials, and video storytelling in English and Spanish.

Partners

Amy D. Waterman, PhD, Health Education Innovator

Dr. Amy D. Waterman is a national transplant innovator and the Deborah C. and Clifton B. Phillips Centennial Chair for Clinical Research in Transplant Medicine, a Full Professor, and the Director of Patient Engagement, Diversity, and Education, representing both J.C. Walter Transplant Center at Houston Methodist Hospital and the Houston Methodist Research Institute.

Patient Engagement Research Lab

The Patient Engagement Research Lab is an interdisciplinary research and education center directed by Dr. Amy Waterman and located at the Houston Methodist Research Institute. The lab leads the field in conducting state of the art clinical research to understand and improve important issues affecting transplant outcomes, intervenes to reduce disparities in access to transplantation for diverse patient and donor populations and tests the effectiveness of interventions to increase transplant referrals and living donation rates. Through collaboration with healthcare providers, national transplant leaders, and healthcare policymakers, the lab translates findings from effective clinical trials into practice to ensure that patients can live longer and enjoy the best possible quality of life.

TREC Fellows

Led by Dr. Waterman, TREC fellows are MD/PhD researchers in transplant and living donation coming together to support one another and develop collaborations across the nation, each bringing their own unique expertise.

Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation

The Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI) is an independent non-profit research foundation affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles. The Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation envisions a world where personalized medicine is available to all. Every person is unique with individual challenges to optimal health, from genetic predisposition to disease to socioeconomic barriers to care. TIBI strives to address those challenges to bridge the gap between sickness and wellness. It aims to tackle the biggest problems in health. TIBI is focused on solving problems in new ways, developing ‘personalized’ solutions, prototyping tangible solutions, and bringing our innovation to the real-world.

The multidisciplinary teams work as part of a unique convergence ecosystem to quickly translate scientific knowledge into real-world solutions in the clinic, with a focus on the problem first to work our way back to the solution. Scientists, clinicians, and engineers work in close collaboration to tackle the problem and rapidly build prototypes. TIBI involves business development and technology transfer experts early on to adapt our innovations for immediate use.

Health Literacy Media (HLM)

Health Literacy Media’s Explore Transplant (ET) and Explore Living Donation (ELD) programs help kidney patients in the USA and Canada make informed treatment choices about transplant and living donation. Through trainings, partnerships, research, and educational materials, ET and ELD have educated more than 4,000 providers, leading to better transplant education for over 28,000 kidney patients. ET and ELD are programs of Health Literacy Media, or HLM, a communications nonprofit that partners with health organizations to make health information easier for people to understand and use.