FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	May 16, 2000
FOR MORE INFORMATION:	Linda McGinity Jackson, Jewish Hospital Barbara Mackovic, Kleinert, Kutz and Associates Hand Care Center, PLLC Kathy Keadle, University of Louisville (502) 561-5447

(Louisville, Kentucky) A press briefing will be held Friday, May 19 at 3:15 p.m. (EDT) at the Jewish Hospital Rudd Heart and Lung Center Conference Center (16th floor) to give a wrap up of the Second International Symposium on Composite Tissue Allotransplantation held May 18-19.

The briefing will be up-linked live via satellite at 3:15 p.m. (EDT). Coordinates for the up-link are Ku Ban SBS 6, Transponder 3. The signal will be available at 3:00 p.m. B-roll of the symposium will also be available via satelitte.

Speaking at the briefing will be Warren C. Breidenbach, III, M.D., assistant clinical professor, University of Louisville and a partner at Kleinert, Kutz and Associates Hand Care Center, who performed the United States first hand transplant; Mark Hardy, M.D., Auchincloss professor of Surgery, Columbia University; and Mark Siegler, M.D., Lindy Bergman professor and director at MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, University of Chicago.

Media interested in attending the symposium, setting up interviews, viewing presentations live, or if you will need a copy of B-roll should contact Joe Stephenson at 502-561-5447. A video/audio feed will be available for taping. You may bring your own video tape and/or audio tape recorders to tape select segments.

Composite tissue allotransplantation (CTA Ð multiple tissue transplant) will be presented by world-renowned surgeons and researchers at the symposium. Program discussions on CTA will include the hand, larynx, bone, muscle, nerve, tendon, vein and skin.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE SYMPOSIUM

• The three surgeons responsible for five of the six hand transplants performed around the world, Warren C. Breidenbach, III, M.D., Kleinert, Kutz and Associates Hand Care Center, PLLC; Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard, Hopital Edouard Herriot, Lyon, France; and Guoxian Pei, M.D., Ph.D., The First Military Medical University, Guangzhou, People's Republic of China, will make presentations at the symposium.
• The world's first larynx transplant recipient and the nation's first hand transplant recipient will also give their perspective on the innovative experimental procedures they have undergone. The patient perspective will be told by Matthew Scott, the United States' first hand transplant recipient, and Timothy Heidler, the world's first larynx transplant recipient. Scott received his new hand January 24-25, 1999, when surgeons from the University of Louisville and Kleinert, Kutz and Associates Hand Care Center, PLLC, performed the 15-hour procedure at Jewish Hospital. Heidler received a larynx transplant at the Cleveland Clinic on January 3, 1998.
• The symposium will include 24 physicians and researchers of international reputation representing five countries. Eight of the original presenters from the first international symposium in November 1997 will return to the conference center at the Jewish Hospital's Rudd Heart and Lung Center to discuss what they have learned from the experimental procedures performed over the past two years. The 1997 symposium was part of a new "transparent process" protocol followed by the Louisville team before performing the nation's first hand transplant that called for researchers and surgeons to -- research it and talk about it, before performing the experimental procedure as opposed to the old way of -- researching it, doing it, and then talking about it.
• CTA presentations/discussions will also include Marshall Strome M.D., Cleveland Clinic, who performed the world's first larynx transplant; Gunther O. Hofmann, M.D., Ph.D., Munich, Germany, who performed several knee/femur transplants; and J. C. Guimbertau, M.D., France, who performed tendon allotransplantation. Ethical considerations in allotransplantation will also be discussed. Other integral parts of the symposium will explore clinical research in immunology therapies, rejection, chimerism, tolerance, new drugs and various research animal models.