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For nearly a year, Barbara Cullen, a longtime culinary instructor, couldn't even taste food. After battling a hereditary kidney disease for 28 years, Cullen had to go on dialysis in November 2007, stripping her of her appetite and her sense of taste.

She had to scale back her hours at L'Academie de Cuisine culinary institute in Gaithersburg due to a "just awful" infection, and a January stroke made her question if she would ever go back to her job.

"I went to work and didn't feel good, came home and didn't feel good," said Cullen, 58, a Silver Spring resident. "I did dialysis at home every night; I was tethered to the house."

But after receiving a rare "incompatible" kidney transplant from her sister Sept. 18, the first ever performed at Georgetown University Hospital, Cullen has regained her appetite and is expected to return to work by the end of the year.

An incompatible kidney transplant allows someone to donate a kidney to a recipient without having matching blood types. Through blood work on the recipient, antibodies that would normally reject a mismatched kidney are removed or weakened to allow a transplant.

Cullen's sister, MaryBeth Mullen, who lives a few blocks away from her sister on Noyes Drive in Silver Spring, had long wanted to donate her kidney to her sister but couldn't because Cullen has Type O blood and her sister has Type B. Last summer, the two went to Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, one of the few hospitals in the country that offers incompatible transplants, but were declined due to insurance issues.

Cullen still had at least another two years on the kidney transplant waiting list at Georgetown and other family members who volunteered were not matches.

"A transplant is a far better result than dialysis," Mullen, 55, said at her sister's home. "It's not a way to live. It's a way to get by."

But in June of this year, Georgetown hired Dr. Keith Melancon to head its kidney and pancreas transplant center. Melancon had held the same position at Johns Hopkins and had studied at the University of Minnesota, two of the most prolific incompatible kidney transplant centers in the country, he said.

With Melancon in place and insurance issues reconciled, Mullen was tested in August and deemed a "perfect match" for her sister. Melancon's team began readying Cullen's blood for the operation.

"Not enough people know about [incompatible transplants]. Many physicians don't even understand this is a possibility," said Melancon, who wanted to work at Georgetown because the Washington, D.C., area has the highest incidence of renal disease in the country.

Melancon performed his first incompatible transplant at Minnesota five years ago after learning the practice had been successful in Asia. A year later, he joined Johns Hopkins and since has performed about 20 transplants, he said.

An incompatible transplant carries a greater risk than a regular kidney transplant because there is a higher chance the recipient's body will reject the donor's kidney during the operation or in the weeks after, Melancon said.

But both Cullen and Mullen have been out of the hospital for at least a week and say they feel only fatigue from the operation. Mullen will go back to work as deputy director of the travel program at the Smithsonian Institution and Cullen expects to return to work by the end of the year.

The sisters will now set their sights on relief for their 62-year-old brother Joe, who has been on dialysis for five years and is battling heart disease. Their mother died at the age of 52 of kidney disease.

The sisters will consult with Melancon to see if any alternatives can expedite Joe's recovery, a testament to the family bond that may have already saved one life.

"She volunteered without looking back at all," Cullen said of her sister. "She is my hero."