Shorter wait means longer life for kidney transplant candidates

GAINESVILLE, Fla. How long a patient survives after a kidney transplant could depend on where he or she signs up to get the surgery, new research from the University of Florida shows. The shorter the waiting time at a transplant center, the longer patients are likely to live. A combination of ...

Researchers explore new driver of transplant rejection: Platelets

Platelets, tiny and relatively uncharted tenants of the bloodstream known mostly for their role in blood clotting, turn out to also rally sustained immune system inflammatory responses that play a critical role in organ transplant rejection, according to a new report from Johns Hopkins scientists....

Unexpected finding opens up new way to stop autoimmune diseases and transplant rejection

After several years of battling recurring infections, the last thing a patient and her doctors ever expected was that the cause of her problems might actually help millions live longer, more active lives. Now, researchers have high hopes because Edward Goetzl and his colleagues from the University...

REGiMMUNE receives $12 million in grants to develop transplant and allergy drugs

Mountain View, CA and TOKYO December 8, 2008 REGiMMUNE Corporation, a privately held biopharmaceutical company focused on developing technologies and products for immune disorders, today announced that it has received two separate grants totaling more than $12 million from the Japan Science and ...

New technique eliminates toxic drugs in islet transplant in diabetic mice

CHICAGO -- The body's immune system hates strangers. When its security patrol spots a foreign cell, it annihilates it. This is the problem when people with type 1 diabetes undergo human islet cell transplantation. The islet cells from a donor pancreas produce robust amounts of insulin for the r...

Cardiac cell transplant studies show promise in cardiac tissue repair

Tampa, Fla. (Sep. 3rd, 2008) Two studies published in the current issue of CELL TRANSPLANTATION (17:6) examine the efficacy of transplanting bone marrow cells (BMCs) for the repair of heart tissue. The first study found that implanting adult cardiomyocytes (heart muscle cells) in combination...

Predicting acute GVHD by gene expression could improve liver stem cell transplant outcomes

Tampa, Fla. (July 21, 2008) Many cell transplants involve the use of stem cells from another human being (known as an allograft), which raises the major concern of the potential for acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). GVHD occurs when an immune response is elicited by the grafted cells agains...

Northwestern Memorial trial may wean kidney transplant patients off antirejection drugs

CHICAGO After a transplant surgery, anti-rejection drugs for the organ recipient are a must, but with prolonged use can have serious side effects, including infections, heart disease and cancer. A team led by Joshua Miller, MD, a researcher at Northwestern Universitys Feinberg School of Medicine,...

Researchers create system to build transplant tissue

One day soon, laboratories may grow synthetically engineered tissues such as muscle or cartilage needed for transplants. In a major step forward, Cornell engineers describe in the journal Nature Materials a microvascular system they have developed that can nourish growing tissues. The researche...

Device helps patients survive, regain function til transplant

ANN ARBOR, Mich. A new generation of implanted heart-assisting pump does very well at helping severely ill heart-failure patients survive, and thrive, until they receive a heart transplant, a new study shows. And, in addition to helping 75 percent of patients stay alive for at least six month...

Scientists discover new virus caused deaths of transplant recipients from single donor

Scientists in the Greene Infectious Disease Laboratory of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and colleagues in the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory in Melbourne, Australia and 454 Life Sciences have discovered a new virus that was responsible for the deaths of...

Mechanical 'artificial hearts' can remove need for heart transplant by returning heart to normal

Mechanical 'artificial hearts' can be used to return severely failing hearts to their normal function, potentially removing the need for heart transplantation, according to new research. The mechanical devices, known as Left Ventricular Assist Devices (LVADs), are currently used in patients with ...

Proteins may predict lung transplant rejection

Using the latest in high tech tools, researchers have identified three proteins that were highly predictive of chronic lung rejection up to 20 months before the rejection occurred. Lung transplant patients have the highest mortality rate of organ recipients, about 45% over five years, said lead i...

Common cold virus leads to death in lung transplant patients

Human rhinovirus (HRV), the leading cause of most common colds, struck two immunosuppressed lung transplant patients, leading to progressive respiratory failure, graft dysfunction and death. The two were part of a group of 11 transplant patients who suffered clinically significant respiratory infec...

Long-term cancer risk follows stem cell transplant recipients

Hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients face a significant long-term risk for developing a second cancer, particularly if they were older at the time of transplant or received stem cells from a female donor, according to a new study. Published in the January 1, 2007 issue of CANCER ( h...

A transplant in time

In hemophilia, a mutated gene prevents the production of a critical blood-clotting protein. Treatments for hemophilia and other such genetic diseases, when they exist, may consist of risky blood transfusions or expensive enzyme replacement therapy. But what if the body could be induced to begin pro...

MUHC announces a transplant first in Quebec

Doctors at the MUHC have announced Quebec's first successful combined heart/liver transplant. The patient, Patrice Dionne, age 54 years, was transferred from the Institut de cardiologie de Quebec (l'hôpital Laval) to the MUHC. The patient received his new heart and liver during a 6-hour operation o...

Failure of 'scout cells' may lead to cancer in transplant patients

A serious form of cancer that occurs in some transplant patients may arise because cells that normally serve as scouts for the immune system become weakened, a new study suggests. The cancer is caused by Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a herpesvirus that infects more than 90 percent of Americans but ...

Carnegie Mellon develops non-invasive technique to detect transplant rejection at cellular level

Carnegie Mellon University scientist Chien Ho and his colleagues have developed a promising tool that uses magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to track immune cells as they infiltrate a transplanted heart in the early stages of organ rejection. This pre-clinical advance, described in an upcoming issue...

Infant transplant patients resist infections that kill adult AIDS patients

Investigators have discovered that some type of protective system goes into action in some cases when a baby's immune system is deficient. This discovery indicates a hidden safety net that might have far-reaching consequences for treating diseases of the immune system such as AIDS. The Mayo Clinic-...

New antifreeze protein found in fleas may allow longer storage of transplant organs

A new antifreeze protein discovered in tiny snow fleas by Queen's University researchers may lengthen the shelf life of human organs for transplantation. Drs. Laurie Graham and Peter Davies, from the Department of Biochemistry, found that the potent protein produced by the fleas to protect themse...

Key To Stem Cell Transplant Success Is Tricking Immune System

A new study reveals critical molecular events in the origin of fat cells. The findings are central to understanding chronic diseases, such as obesity and diabetes, as fat cells produce hormones critical for metabolic control, the researchers said. The study finds that a hormonal cocktail routinel...

Israeli scientists successfully transplant frozen-thawed ovaries in sheep

New freezing technique raises future hopes for human applications Israeli scientists report (Thursday 15 September) in Human Reproduction[1] that they have successfully transplanted whole frozen and thawed ovaries in sheep, retrieved oocytes from these ovaries and triggered them in the laborator...

Researchers identify genes associated with lung transplant rejection

Researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center (SFVAMC) and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have identified six genes associated with lymphocytic bronchitis, which is thought to lead to obliterative bronchitis (OB), the most common cause of long-term failure of transplanted l...

First North American Encapsulated Islet Transplant without Long-term Immune Suppression into a Patient with Type 1 Diabetes

Biologists at the University of Liverpool have discovered how the plagues of the Middle Ages have made around 10% of Europeans resistant to HIV. Scientists have known for some time that these individuals carry a genetic mutation (known as CCR5-delta32) that prevents the virus from entering the cell...

World-first Living Donor Islet Cell Transplant A Success; Procedure Offers Promise For Diabetics

A University of Alberta and Capital Health surgeon, well known for his pioneering work in developing the Edmonton Protocol treatment for diabetes, has taken another important step in the fight against diabetes. On January 19, at Kyoto University Hospital, Dr. Koichi Tanaka and Dr. James Shapiro,...

NIH stimulus funding supports Emory biomedical scientists

...-therapy-like technique for shutting off SCN8A in mice, with an eye towards developing similar treatments for humans. The role of memory T cells in transplant rejection: Memory T cells allow the immune system to respond to infections faster and stronger upon a second encounter, but they also play a big role ...

First human gets new antibody aimed at hepatitis C virus

...is program, which will be a Phase 2 study in liver transplant patients." HCV attacks the liver and can eventua... designed to be a therapy shortly before and after transplant surgery. By giving a patient the new antibody befo...y could, theoretically, be given immediately after transplant surgery to continue neutralizing any remaining vir...

Test helps in fight against lung infections and for treating other life-threatening infections

... free after more than one year. In another case, a patient was on a lung transplant waiting list, and was receiving oral and inhaled antibiotics, but showed a ...d consequently a new combination of antibiotics was administered. The lung transplant was conducted successfully and the patient has been symptom free for more t...

2 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center scientists receive Presidential Early Career Award

... immunogenetics researcher Effie Wang Petersdorf, M.D., whose work has helped refine the tissue-typing process, which enables bone-marrow or stem-cell transplant patients to find suitably matched donors. ...

LSUHSC's Kolls awarded $1.8 million to improve vaccine strategies for P. carinii pneumonia

...ious complication in patients with weakened immune systems, such as those with AIDS, cancer, chronic conditions treated with corticosteroids, or organ transplant recipients. Earlier research by Dr. Kolls found that carbohydrate antibodies are part of the natural response to the Pneumocystis fungus. Theses pr...

Ovarian transplantation: First baby is born after a new technique

...sity Hospital, Limoges, France, described a new, two-step method of ovarian transplant that has produced excellent results in women whose ovaries have been frozen...upply to the ovaries is insufficient, this will not happen, even though the transplant may look as though it has been successful." To overcome this problem the...

Ovarian transplantation: New technique gives greatly improved results in this delicate operation

... the tissue to be frozen by vitrification, but also accelerate the speed of revascularisation of the ovarian graft. "We believed that microvascular transplant would give us a longer duration of ovarian function," said Dr. Silber, "but our current research has proved us wrong. This is not only good news for s...

Children's Hospital Oakland scientists first to discover new source for harvesting stem cells

... American Cancer Society, each year at least 16,000 people with serious blood- related disorders are not able to receive the bone marrow or cord blood transplant they need because they can't find a match. Dr. Kuypers explained that even when a patient receives a cord blood transplant, there may not be enough...

Peripheral nerve repair with fat precursor cells led to wider nerves and less muscle atrophy

...rs at the University of Pittsburgh (USA) used biodegradable nerve guides to transplant APCs into the injured peripheral nerves of laboratory rats. "Adipose ti...uide tube, and those receiving an autograft and nerve guide tube but no APC transplant in the guide tube. Researchers noted that the "gold standard" for nerve...

GARP makes the difference

... new organ as "foreign" and starts fighting it. In the end, the life-saving transplant will be rejected. Until now, only special drugs have managed to keep the im...le distinguishing features to aid them in separating T cells that trigger a transplant rejection from those that inhibit such a reaction: they mainly looked at mo...

Engineered pig stem cells bridge the mouse-human gap

...ology to humans, as evidenced by their already extensive contributions to medicine, such as using pig insulin to treat diabetes or pig heart valves in transplant surgery. The research group modified the current iPS protocols to successfully generate a line of stem cells from a miniature Tibetan pig (whose small...

Genetically corrected blood cells obtained from skin cells from Fanconi anemia patients

...h places the research in a preclinical environment. It remains unknown whether they would generate blood cells after being transplanted. Moreover, the transplant of embryonic stem cells in animals has revealed that these cells can cause tumours. Therefore, the possibility of treating Fanconi anemia patients by ...

REGiMMUNE presents enhanced efficacy data in preclinical transplantation models

...tion with Low-Dose Sirolimus" at the 2009 American transplant Congress being held in Boston. "We are extremel...antly prolonged the survival of grafts in the skin transplant model over Sirolimus single treatment. Likewise, ...lop a pharmacological approach to induce long-term transplant tolerance by promoting the body's intrinsic tolero...

Combined stem cell-gene therapy approach cures human genetic disease in vitro

...rimed to differentiate into healthy blood cells. "We haven't cured a human being, but we have cured a cell," Belmonte explains. "In theory we could transplant it into a human and cure the disease." Although hurdles still loom before that theory can become practicein particular, preventing the reprogrammed...