NHS Blood and Transplant associate medical director Professor James Neuberger said transfer of malignancy was a very rare occurance but more organs were likely to carry diseases as donors get older. He admitted the scale of the problem was not known. A research fellow has now been appointed to find out how often infected organs are passed on to patients. Professor Neuberger said his first role was to try and get all the data together from transplant centres and then to work out strategies with clinicians to reduce risk.