U of A Senior Uses Social Media to Seek Kidney Donor

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Chris Plate and Rachel Reynolds at a Kansas City Royals.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Chris Plate, an Honors College Fellow who is majoring in electrical engineering at the University of Arkansas, is also a dialysis patient and in need of a new kidney. A Facebook page was created to provide ongoing information about Plate and the search for a donor, and it already has 3,000 followers.

Normally, the university is not allowed to release medical information about a student, but Plate in this case allowed permission to tell his story to help those who need kidney transplants across the country, including possibly himself.

When he was 4 years old he was diagnosed with a disease that over time changed into a condition known as “focal segmental glomerulosclerosis,” an autoimmune disease that causes scarring on the kidneys.

Plate’s kidneys eventually failed and he received a transplant from his father during his first semester at the University of Arkansas. Early on, the transplant seemed to work well but within nine months it, too, failed, and Plate began dialysis treatment. He traveled to a dialysis clinic in Rogers for treatment before class three days out of each week during most of 2013. In 2014 he was able to switch to home treatment, which he could do in his dorm room at Walton Hall last year.

Donor Options

Last summer he traveled to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, to be evaluated for a second transplant.

"Mayo has a paired donation option, which could help me because I am not a match with 98 percent of the population due to my previous transplant and several blood transfusions I've received," said Plate.

Paired donation is a new way some hospitals are getting matched transplants for patients, essentially creating a chain of donation in which donor A can give to recipient B and donor B gives to recipient A.

At the beginning of spring break, though, he “hit a wall,” as he put it. He realized he couldn’t continue doing dialysis and living like that forever. He expects to graduate this spring and plans to get married in July. The uncertainty of his future without a new kidney weighed on him.

Turning to the Web

He decided to ask his Facebook friends if anyone would be willing to donate a kidney. That post led Ashley Reynolds, a reporter for KY3-TV in Plate’s hometown of Springfield, Missouri, to write about Plate’s situation, and her story took off on Facebook, spreading exponentially as friends of friends spread the word. His story has been shared nearly 30,000 times since being posted.

If you are interested in kidney donation, in general, or in donating a kidney to Chris, you can find out more information from the Mayo Clinic.

Plate has had at least one surgery each semester while at the university.

“In total, I think I’ve spent 15 days in the hospital this school year and gone to the ER at least 12 times,” he said.

Despite his condition, Plate tries to maintain a normal life on campus, helping restart the Kappa Alpha Order on campus in 2012 and serving as president of Eta Kappa Nu, the electrical engineering honor society on campus. He is currently working on his honors thesis, designing a Maximum Power Point Tracker, a device that could improve the efficiency of solar-powered systems.

Following graduation in May he plans to work at Toth and Associates, an engineering consulting firm in Springfield. He and his fiancée, Rachel Reynolds, plan to get married this summer, too.

About the University of Arkansas: The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Arkansas among only 2 percent of universities in America that have the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Arkansas among its top American public research universities. Founded in 1871, the University of Arkansas comprises 10 colleges and schools and maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio that promotes personal attention and close mentoring.