NEW YORK ORGAN DONOR NETWORK ANNOUNCES NEW APPOINTMENTS TO ITS BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND MEDICAL BOARD

NEW YORK, NY, February 28, 2005 - The following members have been re-appointed to serve on the board after stepping down for one year due to term limits:

Lorraine Egan , executive director of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation in Manhattan;  Anita L. Principe , administrative director of transplant services at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, NY;  Richard Roth , CNN senior United Nations correspondent in Manhattan and a kidney recipient (see article below) ; and Joseph White of Allendale, New Jersey.  New appointments to the board are Assemblyman James Conte, New York State Assembly;  Devon John, M.D. , a member of the pancreas transplant program and department of surgery at New York University Medical Center in Manhattan; and  Stuart Saal, M.D., medical director of the transplant program at the Rogosin Institute of New York-Presbyterian Hospital's New York Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan.

MEDICAL BOARD:  New appointments to the medical board are:

Veronica Delaney, M.D. , nephrologist at Westchester Medical Center; Thomas Diflo, M.D., director of renal transplantation and assistant professor of surgery at New York University School of Medicine; and Lloyd Ratner, M.D., from New York-Presbyterian Hospital's Columbia University campus.

NEW YORK ORGAN DONOR NETWORK

Founded in 1978, the New York Organ Donor Network is one of 58 nonprofit, federally designated organ procurement organizations in the United States . The Donor Network is responsible for the recovery of organs and tissues for transplantation, and public and professional education efforts for a population of 13 million in the Greater New York metropolitan area. It serves the five boroughs of New York City , Long Island, the northern counties of Dutchess, Orange , Putnam , Rockland , and Westchester, as well as Pike County , PA. The Donor Network works closely with all health care delivery systems comprised of nine transplant centers and more than a hundred hospitals.

For more information, call Martin Woolf at 646-291-4460 or via e-mail at mwoolf@nyodn.org .