American Journal of Transplantation: Volume 15, Number 12, December 2015

On the cover this month : One of the earliest histocompatibility tenets for organ transplantation was that of ABO blood group compatibility, which largely followed the same rules as blood transfusion. However, strict adherence to these rules has led to disadvantages in organ allocation that segregate not only by blood group, but also by associated ethnic group. The result has disadvantaged some minority recipient groups. In this issue of AJT, Williams et al (page 3134 ) present landmark analysis of a formal initiative allowing kidneys expressing low levels of the A blood group (so‐called blood group A 2 ) to be transplanted to blood group B individuals with low titer of anti‐A antibody. The results show this to be a safe practice and mitigate some of the disparity associated with the older matching paradigm. This is a wonderful example of mechanistic understanding being leveraged to provide clinical impact. Cover design by Ken North .