Madrid, the national organisation of transplants (ONT) 25/10/2010.-received last Friday the Prince of Asturias for 2010 international cooperation Award for their contribution to scientific and clinical practice for carrying out transplants of organs around the world, as well as the coordination of the activities of donation, extraction, preservation, distribution and exchange of organs, tissues and cells in the international and Spanish health care system. The jury, chaired by Antonio Garrigues Walker, has highlighted the international leadership of the ONT by have been placed to Spain at the head of transplant systems in the world and driven the World Transplant Registry. The Prince of Asturias cooperation 2010 award joins the long list of successes achieved by the ONT since its foundation in 1989. The management of the Organization has allowed carrying out of about 70,000 transplants of solid organs and more than 200,000 tissues and cells. The solvency of the Spanish model has prompted the Council of Europe to recommend States members who adopt their guidelines and this year has adopted the EU directive on quality and safety of transplants with the advice of the organization.

The ONT will share the prize with the Transplantation Society, international organization that leads all the aspects concerning the human transplant. Advances in research among the most outstanding advances in the ONT in recent years include transplants of tissues compounds such as face and arms. In this sense, the director of the Organization, Rafael Matesanz, says that although in these moments may seem a dream manufacture organs, it is no longer so produce fabrics: we are still in a preliminary stage, but the procedure is already under way. It seems science fiction, but if we succeed we can get an organ factory. These statements are based on the results of multiple investigations. Among them is regeneration and recovery of capacity functional hearts damaged by the implantation of stem cells, research developed by Gregorio Maranon hospital and an American group that has achieved positive results in mice.