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New Discovery May End Transplant Rejection
mmmscience writes with this excerpt from the Examiner:
"Big news in the medical world: scientists in Australia have found a way to stop the body from attacking organ transplants, greatly decreasing the possibility of organ rejection. ... When a new tissue is introduced, one's immune system kicks into overdrive, sending out cells known as killer T cells to attack and destroy the unknown tissue. ... Professor Jonathan Sprent and Dr. Kylie Webster from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research focused on a different type of T cells — known as regulatory T cells (Treg) — in this study. Tregs are capable of quieting the immune system, stopping the killer T cells from seeking out and attacking foreign objects."
Okay, what does that do for fighting off infection then?
It's not like there's a magical component to this that identifies the transplanted material as "good" and infectious agents as "bad".
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
This will make organlegging possible. If you can just grab any kidney off the street and use it to replace a failing one, people will.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
As someone about to donate a kidney this summer, I really hope they work on this research more. Donor matching is incredibly difficult, and the risk of rejection poses issues not only with the health of the recipient (though that's obviously the major issue), but also with the psychological health of the donor. A failed donation can make you feel like crap.
In the end, yes.
simon
Well, you can, but that would be like having a Core2Duo for just reading emails...
simon
But it only is needed for 2-3 weeks, according to the article. Just long enough for the body to accept the new cells, after that they let things go back to normal, which would allow the body to attach infectious agents.
The idea (as I understand it) is this:
1) Immunosuppressants not only lower your defenses but are also toxic (as with many drugs).
2) I assume the treatment is either non-toxic, or at least not as bad for you.
3) Not sure about this: I think that people need to take immunosuppressants for a LONG time after the transplant, thus pumping in toxins AND keeping the defenses low, where as this idea is a one time thing you do before the transplant and are then done with.
The wording also makes it sound like the rejection rate is lower than usual, I am unsure if this is true or not.
So yes, you still have the lowered defenses, but with out the toxins, and possibly for a shorter time.
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
TFA and TF summary are missing the "if"s.
Yes this could be a big deal, someday, if the finding holds up for other mammals (a big one), if it works for different kinds of transplants, if it's repeatable, if there are no other major consequences, if human trials are successful, if if if.
Failure to include the "if"s is misleading at best and irresponsible at worst, for giving possibly false hope to those dealing with transplant rejection.
If only there was a linked article that addressed these questions!
I'm glad that joke didn't swing the other way.
I have been having problems with my hyperalloy combat chassis rejecting the external skin tissue overlays. I am making kill^H^H^H^H pet robots and this is just the trick I needed,
I wonder if this could help in regards to allergies? I.e. stop the immune system from "reacting" too much?
And in those 2-3 weeks they keep the person in a steril room devoid of any potential bacteria/virus' that could harm the person.
Hopefully they will be able to run positive clinical trials in the future. So far this is only effective on mice on relatively simple procedures (skin grafts, and pancreatic transfers). Kidneys, hearts, lungs are huge deals. I'm assuming if this hurdle is passed the doner would only need to have a blood-type match? That would be awesome and would make the waiting list that much simpler.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
Yeah... or buying a SUV to get your groceries. Oh, wait...
My 0.02 cents
For starters "killer T-cells" are usually referred to as NK-cells and they are NOT thought to be part of the normal rejection process (they do not require activation and thus would no be stopped by immunosuppresion). There are three types of rejection hyperacute (pre-formed antibodies attack the organ in minutes - the organ literally dies as soon as it is transplanted - this is avoided by the "matching" process), acute (where T-cells [not NK-cells] attack the organ since it is not "self" and therefore "bad" - this is where immunosuppresion helps) and chronic (the body slowly rejects by allowing fibrosis of the vessels leading to the organ).
Actual survival statics for all kidney allografts exceeds 95% today. 80% is quite a drop!
Grafts are not assumed to "take" after 100 days allowing us to stop immunosuppresion! Immunosuppression is currently LIFELONG. There are a few instances where people have tolerated a non-identical twin transplant without medications, but this is _very_ rare. There is active research into finding the key to allow "tolerance" whereby we can drop the medications, but this is still early.
IL-2 suppression is the _mainstay_ of current immunosuppressants both blocking its production via calcineurin ihibitors (cyclosporin and tacrolimus), inhibiting the response (sirolimus/rapamune), or by blocking the receptor with antibodies (basiliximab/daclizumab). (Please understand this is only about half of the therapies that are in use for immunosuppresion, I'm just focusing on the Il-2 aspect).
Just followed the second link and it is _much better_. Still, I strongly disagree with their assertions of 100 days, just doesn't happen in humans. Apparently this study is using IL-2 STIMULATION with a complex that attempts to increase the regulatory T-cells...To me this means that this treatment will not co-exist with the current immunopupression dogma... this means that they will have to have a "complete" replacement for immunosuppresion they won't be able to add this to the current regiment and that means this treatment protocol will be quite sometime in the pipeline. And (fortunately) the authors acknowledge that they are optimistic, but aren't rushing off to collect their Nobel yet:
I am also aware that effective approaches in mice do not necessarily give good results in humans because of subtle differences in the immune systems of mouse and man.
3) Not just a LONG time -- for as long as you have the transplant.
I got a kidney transplant in 1995, and I will be on anti-rejection drugs until either 1) I die, 2) something better comes along that doesn't require anti-rejection meds anymore (<crosses fingers>), 3) or I reject the kidney and it is removed.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
This is better news than they even let on. A means to control rejection is the same as a means to control autoimmune disorders. Recent evidence supporting this is at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19199937 There's a partial list of such disorders at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoimmune_disease
Knowing the mechanism for increasing Treg leads to understanding the mechanism for controlling, thus including suppressing Treg. That would boost the body's immune response. It could control (though not cure) AIDS, and lead to treatments of such as hepatitis B or C without requiring the very side effect laden pegylated alfa interferon 2 + ribavirin treatment. Inducing autoimmnune disease has already been suggested as a cancer treatment http://www.pnas.org/content/96/10/5340.full
As explained in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immune_system an immune system is a very complex system with many components that interact. The more of these we can manipulate the closer we get to the kind of treatments suggested above.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Well, IANAD, but as far as I understand it, not only does the new bone marrow generate T-cells (among other blood cells), its "offspring" take up residence in organs, so basically it's a complete reboot of the immune system, including bloodstream and organ tissues. As a matter of fact, it's such a "clean slate" that recipients lose their acquired immunity, and all the vaccinations (polio, measles, etc.) have to be done again.