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A single day of anti-
rejection medication for the average transplant recipient
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Each year, more than 19,000 organ and tissue transplants are performed in the United States. For all of these people, anti-rejection therapies known as "immunosuppressive drugs" are a lifeline that prevents their body from rejecting the transplant.
Rejection of a transplanted organ is part of the body's natural reaction to fight foreign invaders - it is the same system that is helps you fend off threats like a cold virus or bacterial infection. When a person receives an organ from another person, their immune system "sees" the cells of that organ as foreign, and then mounts an attack to rid it from the body.
In order to prevent this, a number of immunosuppressive medications are available that have proven quite successful at preventing rejection over the short term. However, these drugs work by suppressing all of the immune system - even the parts that protect you from real threats. That means that people taking immunosuppressive drugs are at risk of developing serious infections, and sometimes even cancer. And immunosuppressive drugs only work for as long as you are taking them - once you stop, they stop working and you are at risk of rejecting your transplant.
The Immune Tolerance Network is working to find new immune tolerance therapies. These are medications and techniques that would suppress only the parts of the immune system involved in rejecting the transplant, but leave the disease-fighting parts to continue their good work. As well, they are often designed to be short-term therapies, meaning that they don't need to be taken every day for life, but would still have a lasting effect against transplant rejection. In essence, immune tolerance therapies are designed to reprogram the immune system so that it learns to tolerate the presence of a transplanted organ or tissue.
The Immune Tolerance Network conducts clinical trials of potential tolerance therapies in liver, kidney and pancreatic islet transplantation. Use the menu at left to see a list of our clinical trials that are currently enrolling volunteers.
