Advances toward the establishment of transplant tolerance were the subject of several presentations involving BioTransplant Incorporated at the annual meetings of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and the American Society of Transplant Physicians.
Massachusetts General Hospital researchers working in conjunction with BioTransplant reported that, several weeks after grafting swine thymus and human fetal liver tissue into mice, they identified large numbers of human T cells that were tolerant to pig antigens in the immune system of treated mice. The potential applications of the research include establishing functioning immune cells, which may facilitate tolerance to a porcine donor organ, and developing T cell replacement therapy for the treatment of HIV, BioTransplant said.
Drs. Kazuhiko Yamada and Joren Madsen examined the role of the thymus in the establishment of tolerance to a kidney and heart transplant. In tolerant animals, they demonstrated the prevention of cardiac allograft vasculopathy, a major cause of heart transplant failure.
In collaboration with MedImmune, Inc., BioTransplant said that MEDI-507, a humanized monoclonal antibody with potential application for treating transplant rejection and graft vs. host disease, was well tolerated in a 13-patient phase I clinical trial. The open-label trial in kidney recipients examined three dose levels of MEDI-507. No anti-MEDI-507 antibodies were detected following administration. Two patients experienced acute rejection during the first 30 days of follow-up. Further testing is planned.
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