View the PDF of this article at: https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=26043

ACCOMPANYING COMMENTARY:

TITLE: Gene expression profiling gets to the root of human hair follicle stem cells

AUTHOR CONTACT:

George Cotsarelis
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Phone: 610-902-2400;
Fax: 215-573-9102;
E-mail: cotsarel@mail.med.upenn.edu. View the PDF of this article at: https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=27490

IMMUNOLOGY

Transplantation patients: enigmas or chimeras?

University Hospital Zurich researchers have determined a way in which to prevent the harmful immune response to newly transplanted organs, which can lead to organ rejection. The study appears in the January 4, 2006 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Transplantation medicine is potentially useful in treating a variety of diseases, but the need for life-long suppression of the immune response limits the usefulness of this therapeutic approach. Strategies have been previously designed to try and eliminate the recipient's immune response to the transplanted material, however this apparent tolerance seldom persists for long periods of time. Rare cases of acceptance of transplanted material after patients have discontinued use of immunosuppressive drugs have been observed and this is often the result of what is known as macro- or microchimerism where greater than or less than 1% of donor cells are found in the recipients blood, respectively. For stable graft acceptance to occur, the recipient's T cells must remain unresponsive to the transplanted material over the long term.

In this new study, Weldy
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Contact: Brooke Grindlinger
press_releases@the-jci.org
212-342-9006
Journal of Clinical Investigation
4-Jan-2006