[MUSIC PLAYING] KEN BRAYMAN: To be celebrating our 50th anniversary and to have the only comprehensive transparent program in the state of Virginia is quite meaningful, because it means that, not only have we been involved in transplant for the last 50 years, but we've grown. And the success in transplantation across the country and the world is in part related to the experiences that have occurred at the University of Virginia. 

JOSE OBERHOLZER: It's just almost unimaginable how transplantation could have moved the way it did. I mean, over 50 years ago, nobody thought that this will ever happen. And today, it's just standard medical care. And the advancements and the thousands of lives that have been saved, and it's through those treatments. 

ROB TEASTER: I would say, the one story that sticks out in my mind is the first pediatric liver transplant that we did in our partnership with the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. That was a very large milestone for us and the cumulation of three and four years worth of work to actually get that young girl transplanted. 

ANITA SITES: The 50th anniversary to me means a culmination of a lot of years of patient stories and staff experiences and advances in technology with transplant that we get to celebrate all of those things, most importantly, though, the patients and their life-changing events and the part that we've gotten to play in those stories. 

MARTHA PERKINS: I still remember the very first patient I ever called in. I will never forget that opportunity, just being here for a couple weeks. And that was so many years ago. I never forget that phone call. 

KEN BRAYMAN: The future for transplantation is very bright. It's a very mature therapy. But I think that to advance the therapy hopefully is to decrease the need for transplants. 

ANITA SITES: There's lots of research that's constantly being done in the field of transplant in terms of medications. So I think in the long run, we'll see more medication advances, where maybe patients take less medication. 

JOSE OBERHOLZER: I think we will go through different stages, maybe a stage where we will be able to reproduce organs in the laboratory. We can already reproduce cells. And they will be soon clinically testes, or some are actually already tested. And I think in 50 years, we will have learned from that laboratory reproduction of cells and organs and then translate this into regenerative approaches inside the human body. And that sounds like science fiction, but I think it may not even take 50 years to get there.