Released on = February 9, 2006, 11:11 am

Press Release Author = Robert Volosevich, Jr. / MatchingDonors.com

Industry = Internet & Online

Press Release Summary = Connecticut Woman Receives a Kidney Transplant from a Nevada Woman Found On MatchingDonors.com; both the Patient and Donor met on the website.

"I am so grateful to her (Mary Bonno) for giving me this second chance at life". -
Lori Mooney [matchingdonors.com 19th patient]

Site Endorsed by Various Health Officials, Ethicists and Doctors across the Country


Press Release Body = Glastonbury, Connecticut resident Lori Mooney wrote on
MatchingDonors.com; "I am a 49 year old wife and mother of a 22 year old son. I
have polycystic kidney disease. I have been on dialysis for two years, and my
prospects of receiving a cadaver kidney are bleak. In January of 2003, my kidneys
failed and my loving husband donated his kidney to me. Unfortunately, the transplant
failed due to a rare complication. Due to the many transfusions I received at that
time, I became sensitized. Sensitization happens when you develop many antibodies
to other people's blood. This makes getting a match on the cadaver list almost
impossible. I have been told that the average wait for a sensitized donor is 12
years.

Fortunately, my doctors at Johns Hopkins in Maryland have developed a protocol to
help people like me. The donor, however, needs to be a living donor. I am an
excellent candidate for a transplant, as I'm without any other health problems. My
blood type is AB which is compatible to all four blood types". Lori Mooney has
found that special person to be her kidney donor she is Mary Bonno from Sun Valley,
Nevada. Mary's MatchDonors.com profile read, "I am a 38 year old woman in Nevada
with no husband or children. I work for a federal government agency and I am a
veteran. I have not been exposed to any chemical/biological hazards. Every day I
see people linger, hoping for an organ that could save his/her life or increase
quality of life. We all have a responsibility as brothers and sisters to do what we
can to help each other. I am well aware of the rigors of the transplant/donor
process, and I am quite serious about being a living donor". They have a surgery
date set for February 7, 2006 at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland.
When Lori Mooney first learned that she had polycystic kidney disease, she was
seventeen. It is the most common of all life-threatening genetic diseases affecting
more than 600,000 Americans and 12.5 million people worldwide. Kidney function
gradually deteriorates until dialysis is needed. The one cure is getting a
transplant. Lori finally lost her kidney function at the age of 47. Her husband,
Jim, offered to test to be a living donor and a transplant was performed in January
2003. Unfortunately, the transplant failed due to a rare complication. Then she
began dialysis three months later. Lori Mooney has been on dialysis for three years
and because she is sensitized, her wait for a cadaver kidney could be as long as 12
years.

Her sister, Karen, tested for her, but was not a good tissue match. Other family
members could not test because they too have PKD. At this point she was without a
living donor, with little hope of receiving a cadaver kidney. Mrs. Mooney was
devastated to think that she would probably be living the rest of my life on
dialysis. The protocol to help a sensitized patient like her requires a living
donor, and she knew of no one. It was then that Lori Mooney discovered
MatchingDonors.com and was able to tell her story. After many exchanges of e-mails
and telephone calls she finally met Mary Bonno in the final testing stages.

Lori's donor, Mary Bonno from Sun Valley, Nevada spends her life working at a
Veteran's hospital in a laboratory. When Lori was asked about how she first learned
of MatchingDonors.com, she was doing some personal research to answer a question
about antibody/antigen reactions in donated tissues. During the course of her
research, she came across a few articles about MatchingDonors.com. What Mary Bonno
found surprised her, so many waiting for organs, and some that would probably be no
where near the top of the UNOS list.

"The VA hospital I work in has many patients on dialysis...I see the suffering every
day. And when I discovered MatchingDonors.com, I found a way that I could actually
MAKE a difference. I do believe that being able to actually connect and communicate
with a potential recipient made a huge difference for me. I\'m not sure that I could
have blindly donated an organ to a person I know absolutely nothing about. I have
talked to and met the recipient. I can see what a good person she is, and I can
know that she and I made the decisions ourselves, not some anonymous entity that
gets to make a life or death decision for a person they will never know. I\'m
certain that many are already on the UNOS list, but some, like my recipient, may
never be able to get the organ they need unless they find their own living donor. I
think MatchingDonors.com is a wonderful website; and a lifesaver for those who
cannot find a living donor otherwise." Their surgery will take place on Tuesday, February 7, 2006 at John Hopkins in Maryland. This will be the nineteenth transplant done in the past year between patients and donors who have found a match on MatchingDonors.com that has gone on to surgery.

MatchingDonors.com was launched in January of 2004 as an Internet service based in
Massachusetts. Patients on transplant lists put their profiles on the website, and
potential donors browse the site for a life they want to help save. Donors are not
compensated, since it is against the law to have any financial benefit from organ
donation.

Dr. Jeremiah Lowney, one of the Web site founders, said "Patients are asked to pay a
membership fee, but they don't pay a fee if they can't afford it." Many praise
MatchingDonors.com as a creative, entrepreneurial response to this deadly disparity,
and 100% of the money paid for patient memberships is applied to running the site.
Since the inception of MatchingDonors.com, directed living organ donations have
increased to historic numbers. According to UNOS.org, from January, 2005 to June,
2005 out of the 7,241 donors recovered for transplantation 3,802 were from deceased
donors and 3,439 were from living donors. "We believe that if more people were better educated on the ability to be a live organ donor, and we add in the personal communication between potential organ donors and patients needing an organ, the number of donors will increase and so will the probability of a patient receiving their much needed organ. We already have over 2,100 potential donors on our site waiting to find patients needing organs", said Dr. Jeremiah Lowney, MatchingDonors.com Medical Director. "MatchingDonors.com is the most comprehensive searching system available. Other organizations concentrate mainly on the passive anonymous portion of finding organ donors - leaving little or no communication between patients and potential donors". MatchingDonors.com has had incredible success in its first 12 months:
1. MatchingDonors.com has an extremely high success rate - most patient members that
have been on the site for at least 30 days have been offered an organ by a potential
donor.
2. At least 21 of our patient members have upcoming surgery dates with their donors
found on MatchingDonors.com.
3. Immediately after its first surgery in October 2004, MatchingDonors.com had over
2 million visitors on a weekly basis.
4. MatchingDonors.com now has over 100 patients with active profiles and over 2,312
potential donors on the site. New patients and potential donors sign up daily.
5. MatchingDonors.com is recommended and used by many doctors across the United
States, including some of the most prestigious transplant surgeons and centers.
As of January 23, 2006, there are roughly 90,663 patients waiting for an organ
transplant in the United States. Yet, from January 2005 to October 2005, according
to the United Network for Organ Sharing, a non-profit organization contracted with
the US Department of Health, there were only 23,511 organ transplants performed in
the United States. Every day, 17 people die while waiting for a transplant of a
vital organ, such as a heart, liver, kidney, pancreas, or lung. This creates a
national crisis that has led even President Bush to publicly encourage private
organizations to raise awareness of the important need for organ and tissue donors.

Currently, patients waiting for an organ donation are placed on a national waiting
list through the United Network for Organ Sharing. A computer system matches
patients to donor organs according to objective criteria such as blood and tissue
type, immune status, medical urgency and time spent on the waiting list. This
ranking system determines which patients are offered available organs. This process
is extremely important in anyone's organ search, but now MatchingDonors.com offers a
way to enhance the search with a more active approach.

MatchingDonors.com main objective is to search the world to find potential live
donors for people in need of organ transplants. Patient members of
MatchingDonors.com provide a personal biography as well as pictures of their choice
to display on the website, which will create an interest in them and their life
story. When patients in need of an organ transplant place themselves into
MatchingDonors.com database, their information will be promoted on the website.
MatchingDonors.com advertises and promotes its Web site in many different ways
through extensive public relations networking to increase potential donor's viewing
the site. The personal connection MatchingDonors.com provides is key to finding a potential live donor. According to the National Kidney Foundation, "Nearly one out of four (23.4%) of 1000 people queried told pollsters that they would be "likely" to
consider donating a kidney or a portion of their liver or lung to help save the life
of someone they did not know." Many people feel more comfortable considering
offering a live donation to someone they may have a connection to or a common bond.

-more-
When patients provide their biography and open up personally, the potential for live
donors to respond is increased. To help educate people about the option of live
organ donation, MatchingDonors.com Web site provides extensive information regarding
the safety and types of donations available.

MatchingDonors.com Medical Director, Dr. Jeremiah Lowney, is available for
interviews for print, radio and television before and after the surgery. Please
contact Doctor Lowney at 781-821-2204 to set up interviews. An NPR radio interview
about MatchingDonors.com can be found at:
http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2005/02/20050222_b_main.asp .
Both the patient and donor can be interviewed; their contact information can be
obtained by calling MatchingDonors.com at 781-821-2204. Many of our patients and
donors are willing to speak with the press. Contact information about our patients
and donors may be obtained by calling MatchingDonors.com at 781-821-2204.
MatchingDonors.com is not an organ donor waiting list, and is not associated with
any organ donor organization. It is a nonprofit venue where patients and potential
donors can communicate and hopefully expedite a live donor agreeing to give a
much-needed organ. MatchingDonors.com gives patients and potential donors the
important communication tools to correspond with each other, but once the contact
between the parties has been made, the road to transplant surgery is their own.
Based in Canton, Mass., MatchingDonors.com is a nonprofit corporation with people
based throughout the United States. Anyone interested in donating money to support
MatchingDonors.com services can do so by calling Matchingdonors.com at 781-821-2204.
More information about the company is available at its corporate Web site,
http://www.MatchingDonors.com.
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Web Site = http://www.matchingdonors.com

Contact Details = Robert Volosevich, Jr.
MatchingDonors.com, Inc.
766 Turnpike Street
Canton, MA 02021
rpvjr@MatchingDonors.com
Office: 781-821-2204