Helping the body accept donor livers without lifelong immune-suppressing drugs
Preclinical Studies of Living and Deceased Donor Liver Allograft Tolerance
Trying a new approach to help people who get liver transplants keep their donor liver without long-term immune-suppressing medicines.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Columbia University Health Sciences NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (New York, United States) |
| Project ID | NIH-11239811 on NIH RePORTER |
What this research studies
Researchers are using a nonhuman primate model to develop ways to make the immune system accept a donated liver long-term. They plan to create durable donor mixed chimerism — a stable presence of donor immune cells — using conditioning protocols that could work for both living and deceased donors. The team will study how tolerance develops at the cellular level to find markers and targets that could be used in people. Success in these preclinical studies would guide safer, targeted approaches for future clinical trials.
Who could benefit from this research
Good fit: People who need or have received a liver transplant would be the eventual candidates for tolerance-induction protocols developed from this work.
Not a fit: Patients who are not candidates for liver transplantation or whose medical condition prevents receiving donor-cell conditioning would not directly benefit from this research.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could reduce or eliminate the need for lifelong immunosuppressive drugs and lower the risk of rejection and transplant-related complications.
How similar studies have performed: Rare cases of spontaneous tolerance have been reported, but deliberate induction of durable donor mixed chimerism is largely experimental and has not been proven in humans.
Where this research is happening
New York, United States
- Columbia University Health Sciences — New York, United States (Active)
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Sykes, Megan — Columbia University Health Sciences
- Study coordinator: Sykes, Megan
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page below.