May 31, 2019 – Better Transplant

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Anchor lead: Can the presence or absence of a certain protein improve kidney transplants? Elizabeth Tracey reports

Kidney transplant success could be improved by testing both donor and recipient for the presence of a certain protein that genes determine whether it is made or not. When there isn’t a match rejection is much more likely, a recent study found. Chirag Parikh, a kidney expert at Johns Hopkins, says such studies continue to improve the success of kidney transplants.

Parikh: We can take a kidney and give it to a loved one or somebody on the waiting list and the outcome of the kidney is dependent on several factors. A small fraction is dependent upon the genetic constitution, and we could find that some genes work well with each other, some genes react in a way that the lifespan could be shortened. If we could interrogate and then keep it in a database and do a perfect match we can optimize the kidney function of a transplanted kidney.  :30

Parikh notes that such an approach might also be practical in all solid organ transplants. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.