Nearly 60 years after the first successful heart transplant, the American Heart Association is launching a bold new initiative to fundamentally transform how heart transplant care is delivered across the United States. The Association’s first-ever heart transplant research network will include 14 medical research centers and a coordinating center, bringing together scientists from around the country to create a national, unified data, research and quality care infrastructure to improve heart transplant outcomes.
According to the American Heart Association’s 2026 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics, about 4,500 heart transplantations were performed in the U.S. in 2025, the most in any year, yet more than 3,700 people remained on the waiting list. "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 American Heart Association. "This is one of the most high-stakes areas in medicine, yet innovation has lagged far behind."
The initiative aims to address fragmentation in heart transplant care, which currently relies on limited research investment, inconsistent outcomes—especially among Black patients and children—and clinical guidelines based on expert consensus rather than robust evidence. The multi-phase effort focuses on three pillars: a global heart transplant data infrastructure, a research network for breakthrough science, and a coordinated path forward modeled after the Association’s Get With The Guidelines success.
The research network will advance care in critical areas including earlier detection of transplant rejection, remote monitoring technologies, viral surveillance, and development of safer therapies. The coordinating center will be led by Emilia Bagiella, Ph.D., at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. 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.
"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," Jessup said. The Association has now funded more than $6.1 billion in cardiovascular research since 1949.
