UNOS Labs

UNOS Labs Program Manager, Casey Humphries, discusses UNOS Labs as a collaborative space where UNOS’ behavioral scientists, biostatisticians, data scientists, and developers partner with donation and transplantation experts to work toward solutions that will make the transplant system more efficient and increase transplants.

UNOS staff regularly collaborate with members and industry experts on projects to improve the transplant system and increase the number of transplants performed. In order to further such work, we created a virtual research center known as UNOS Labs.

UNOS Labs is an experimental incubator that brings together data, technology, and industry expertise.

We use UNOS Labs to find out if a transformational idea will work or a hypothesis on ways to improve the transplant is true. It is not an academic exercise or theoretical playground, but a place where we can test products, tools, and methods for insights to improve the system. A project or study must meet the following criteria to be a UNOS Labs study:

• Experimental – Needs scientific investigation to answer question or test validity.
• Micro-oriented – Starts small with potential to scale to larger system.
• High risk – Lacks sufficient data to know if it’s going to work or fail.
• Data-driven – Relies on newly created data to inform decisions.
• Collaborative – Relies on partnering with industry (transplant and/or non-transplant) experts.