BODY PARTS GROWN ON DEMAND WITH NO REJECTION FACTOR

At the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Dr. Anthony Atala’s lab is the largest in the world “manufacturing” body parts. We’re not talking about prosthetics here, and not robotics – this is growing new, living organs – and they are yours – made up of identical tissue found in the rest of your body. Growing a finger from the ground up: layering cartilage, bone, then muscle. A beating, engineered heart valve that’s learning how to pump blood before it’s implanted. It’s regenerative medicine and the goal is to help the tens of thousands of people worldwide waiting for organ transplants. In Pittsburgh, Dr. Steven Badylak has discovered a compound that tricks the body into repairing itself, much like the body knows how to do when it’s in the womb. The U.S. military has invested $250 million in regenerative research aimed at helping soldiers with severe battle injuries, regrowing muscle and skin for burn injuries, as well as transplant technology for lost limbs.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

No More Dialysis

Immunologists Develop Method

To Decrease Rejections

Of Kidney Transplants

October 1, 2007 — A nephrologist has found that a specialized type of anti-rejection therapy using intravenous immunoglobulin can make kidney transplants possible for patients with high ‘anti-donor’ antibodies. 25 to 30 percent of patients on the kidney transplant list could benefit from this therapy. Tissue compatibility issues exist with any organ transplant, but the risk is greatly increased for those with high exposure to antigens received through blood transfusions, previous transplantation, or even pregnancy.

Seventy-thousand Americans are waiting for a kidney transplant. A third of them are parked on dialysis because their antibody levels are too high for a transplant. But that’s no longer a barrier for some people.

“I used to just sit around and throw up,” says former dialysis patient Soraya Kohanzadeh.

Dialysis is something Kohanzadeh would rather forget, but if telling her story saves lives, it’s worth it.

Kohanzadeh — like many kidney failure patients — developed high levels of “anti-donor” antibodies through blood transfusions. Her highly sensitized immune system would likely reject any donated kidney.

“Essentially, she would have a very short, sick life on dialysis,” says Joan Lando, Kohanzadeh’s mother.

But Kohanzadeh is no longer here, thanks to intravenous immunoglobulin therapy or IVIG. Here’s how it works: during dialysis, patients are given blood containing a mix of immunoglobulins, which “turn-off” the anti-donor antibodies’ attack response without suppressing the patient’s immune system.

“A significant other comes forward, donates an organ, and there’s an incompatibility there. We can treat the patient and remove those antibodies. Then the transplant can be done,” Stanley Jordan, M.D., director of nephrology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

More than a year after surgery, Lando’s kidney keeps her daughter alive.

“It was sort of shocking to think I wasn’t going to have to be sick forever,” Kohanzadeh says.

Through their website, this mother-daughter team works to spread the word of a little known therapy that could save thousands in need of a kidney. IVIG is covered by Medicare and can be used in both living and cadaver-donor transplants. Nearly 30 percent of patients on the kidney transplant list might benefit from this therapy.

To learn more go to www.sevenluckystars.com