As first reported by Captain David Harlan for the Insulin-Free World Foundation in the fall of 1998, a new era in transplantation for diabetes is here. Close to 100 people gathered last month to celebrate the opening of the new Organ and Tissue Transplant Research Center in the freshly remodeled 11-East patient care unit. Patients on this new unit will receive transplants of either insulin-producing islet cells or kidneys, followed by novel therapies to prevent their immune systems from rejecting the transplants. If the therapies are successful, these patients could be cured of their diabetes or renal disease.
Rejection is a major hazard of organ or tissue transplantation.
Powerful drugs are given to suppress the patient's immune response, but side effects can be unpleasant enough to cause patients to stop taking the drugs. This step can mean almost certain organ rejection. So we do know that it's possible to achieve a state of peaceful coexistence between the transplanted organ and the recipient's immune system. Recent research in rhesus monkeys has lead to immunologic strategies using antibodies to block the rejection process and essentially fool the body into thinking that the transplanted tissue is its own. This research has been spearheaded by Dr. Harlan and Dr. Allan Kirk, of the Naval Medical Research Center.