Organ transplant research centre opens at children's hospital in Sydney

A new centre for organ transplants and research has been established in Sydney after a multi-million dollar donation.

The Children's Centre for Transplantation and Research will open at the Children's Hospital at Westmead after a $3 million donation from the James Fairfax Foundation.

The state of the art centre is focused on improving the lives of children who need a transplant to survive, with an end goal of preventing organ rejection and even making transplants unnecessary altogether.

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Associate Professor Gordon Thomas, who is the Head of Transplant Surgery at the Children's Hospital at Westmead, said the centre would bring the knowledge and expertise into one place.

"This will integrate what we do clinically, as surgeons and clinicians with the research unit," he said.

One of the goals of gene therapy is to fix a patient's own organ outside of their bodies, avoiding the need for a transplant in the first place.

"We want to reduce the number of transplants we do, but also the ones we have to do, we want to give a better quality of life."

Clare Burrows' daughter Kate is a healthy, happy nine-year-old, who will be on immunosuppressant drugs for life after having a liver transplant at nine-months-old and then again at 14-months-old due to complications.

"It was very confronting and very unexpected," Clare Burrows said.

"Any research that is going to improve the outcomes for future children - and also current children - would be amazing."

The centre must now find ongoing donations to continue its work.