Patent ID: 7625557

Claim:
A method for selectively suppressing the immune response of an intended recipient of transplanted organs or tissue, comprising the steps of: (a) removing a piece of skin from a donor of an organ or tissue to be transplanted; (b) allografting the piece of skin from the donor to the intended recipient of the organ or tissue to be transplanted; (c) monitoring the intended recipient to determine when an immunological response to the allografted skin occurs in the intended recipient and obtaining an extracorporeal quantity of blood from the intended recipient after the immunological response occurs; (d) treating the extracorporeal quantity of blood from the intended recipient to induce at least one of apoptosis or necrosis of T cells present in the extracorporeal quantity of blood; (e) treating the extracorporeal quantity of blood from the recipient by flowing the blood through an apparatus having plastic channels with a diameter of about 1 mm or less; (f) following treatment of the extracorporeal quantity of blood, incubating the treated extracorporeal quantity of blood; and (g) administering the incubated extracorporeal quantity of blood to the intended transplant recipient; (h) obtaining cells from the donor; (i) treating the cells from the donor to render the cells at least one of apoptotic or necrotic; and (j) combining the treated cells from the donor with the extracorporeal quantity of blood from the recipient prior to incubation of the treated extracorporeal quantity of blood.