Here’s a cool story out of Ohio. University of Toledo-based transplant surgeon Michael Rees has created a chain of organ donors and recipients that could go on indefinitely. Here’s how it works:

Normally, people get kidneys from deceased donors or a relative. But in one patient’s case, Rees needed a healthy person who would donate a kidney to a stranger. He had an idea: What if the family who received the donation would, in turn, donate a kidney to a patient in need, and that patient’s family then donate, and so on?

Rees’s first altruistic donor, Matt Jones, saved a life in 2007 by giving a kidney. The recipient family kept up its end of the deal and donated a kidney to someone else.

The Detroit Free Press reports:

Donating a kidney to keep the chain going is not mandatory, but Rees said most people want to share the gift of life with others, after their loved one is a recipient. So far, Rees said, no one has reneged on the chain.

Rees said he hopes his chain concept — he currently has six chains going and hopes to launch a seventh this month — will increase the number of live-donor kidney transplants, which last longer than those from dead donors. He also said he hopes it can save lives, because about 4,000 people a year die while waiting for kidneys.

“Some of the simplest ideas take the longest to realize,” Rees said.

Gosh, it’s nice to read some good news for a change.