Clinical Transplantation Laboratory at Guy's Hospital

Laboratory overview

We are a UKAS accredited medical laboratory no.9568 and have been based at Guy’s Hospital for over 40 years. We have been internationally accredited by the European Federation for Immunogenetics since 2008.

Peter Gorer, who trained at Guy's and spent most of his working life there since 1940, was the first person to describe transplantation antigens and formulate an immunological theory of transplantation. He has been described as 'the father of histocompatibility antigens'. The first renal transplantation in the South Thames region was performed at Guy's Hospital in May 1967.

We now provide a comprehensive service in support of a variety of solid organ transplant programs:–.

• Renal and pancreas transplantation to all the South Thames area adult renal units.
• Renal transplantation for all the London area paediatric renal units.
• Islet, small bowel, simultaneous Kidney and Liver, and liver transplantation in the Liver Unit at King’s College Hospital.
• Heart and Lung transplantation at Harefield Hosptial.
• Related Stem cell transplantation support at Guys Hospital.

Key features:

As HLA antigens vary widely between individuals and dictate their immune repertoire we provide a comprehensive ‘HLA and Disease Association’ service. This includes well-known associations for companion diagnostic purposes and the development of therapies and vaccines optimised for differences in the populations immune response.
The laboratory is nationally recognised for its innovation and support for all aspects of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics
We have a bespoke approach to service provision to allow a seamless integration of our service with clinical practice
We are the busiest renal transplantation laboratory in the UK, facilitating over 350 renal transplants per year.
Our national specialism is antibody incompatible transplantation, both ABO and HLA. We have developed a highly successful approach to enable renal and stem cell transplantation in the face of donor HLA specific antibody
Our on-call team is exceptional and provides a 3 hour turn around time for a deceased donor crossmatch 24/7. Similarly HLA typing has a turn around time of 2 hours.

Our customers include Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospitals, King’s College Hospital, Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals, St. George’s Hospital Transplant Unit, St. Helier Hospital Renal Unit, Royal Sussex County Hospital Renal Unit, Kent and Canterbury Hospitals Renal Units, Evelina Children’s Hospital Renal Unit, Great Ormond Street Hospital Renal Unit, Princess Elizabeth Hospital, Guernsey Renal Unit, London Bridge Hospital Renal unit, General Practitioners and International referrals for HLA and ABOi transplantation.

EFI Accredited. Laboratory reference: 03-GB-013.987