Let’s say your cousin needs a kidney. You agree to provide one. But you’re not a match. No problem: an organ registry finds somebody who is a match for you, and somebody who’s already agreed to provide a kidney to that person is a match for your cousin. So you swap kidneys, and both people get new kidneys. It’s rare that something so simple can happen, and sometimes they get a bit more complex. But the National Kidney Registry just pulled off a truly momentous feat, coordinating sixty people over the course of four months in seventeen hospitals in eleven states to provide thirty people with kidneys. For the New York Times, Kevin Sack provides a remarkable profile of 59 of the 60 people involved, explaining how each person fit to weave a tapestry of lifesaving. →