InformAI wins $1M NIH grant for transplant AI tool

InformAI, Inc. received $1 million in second-year NIH Fast-Track funding to advance TransplantAI, a decision-support tool for organ transplantation. The project aims to improve donor-recipient matching and outcomes as U.S. transplant demand continues to outpace supply.

Why it matters: - Organ transplantation still faces a shortage problem. More than 100,000 people are waiting for an organ in the United States. - Better matching tools could reduce organ discard and improve outcomes for heart, lung, kidney and liver transplants. - In 2025, more than 49,000 organ transplants were performed in the U.S.

What happened: - InformAI, Inc. received $1 million in grant funding for the second year of the National Institutes of Health Fast-Track grant, project number 1R44HL172564-01. - The funding supports TransplantAI, InformAI’s AI platform for transplant decision support. - The grant announcement was dated Sept. 24, 2026, from Houston.

The details: - TransplantAI uses patient clinical and imaging data to support organ transplant centers and organ procurement organizations. - The system targets organ scarcity, organ discard and donor-recipient matching for heart, lung, kidney and liver organs. - InformAI says advanced AI algorithms have shown better predictive accuracy for transplant outcomes than existing clinical decision-support tools. - The NIH Fast-Track award is designed to speed funding for SBIR projects that are scientifically meritorious and have strong commercialization potential. - The research is supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute under award number R44HL172564. - InformAI is based in the Texas Medical Center and focuses on AI-enabled clinical solutions, with an emphasis on surgical analytics and oncology.

Between the lines: - The funding suggests federal support for AI tools that can help transplant teams make faster and more informed decisions. - Dr. Abbas Rana, associate professor of surgery at Baylor College of Medicine and the clinical principal investigator, said there is an urgent need for integrated predictive insights, including real-time assessment of waitlist mortality and post-transplant success. - Rana said those insights are especially important in complex cases involving expanded-criteria allocation decisions. - Jim Havelka, InformAI founder and CEO, said the company is focused on AI clinical solutions that improve organ transplant outcomes by optimizing donor-organ matching.

What's next: - InformAI will continue developing TransplantAI under the NIH award. - The company appears positioned to push the platform toward broader clinical use if the project keeps showing strong predictive performance. - The next key test is whether the tool can translate its modeling gains into practical improvements for transplant centers and patients.

The bottom line: - InformAI has secured another year of federal funding to advance an AI system aimed at easing one of medicine’s toughest bottlenecks: matching scarce organs to patients who need them most.