A single dose of engineered immune cells has helped two men and one woman to receive life-saving kidney transplants. The trio are part of a group of patients who have 'highly sensitized' immune systems ' meaning that they are often not eligible to receive transplants because their bodies usually reject the donated organs. 'These people die on the waiting list ' they never get a kidney,' says Allan Kirk, a kidney transplant surgeon at Duke University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina, who was not involved in their care. Using these immune cells to make transplants possible 'could be a real game changer', Kirk says. More than a year after receiving the cells, the three people are now living with new kidneys and without notable side effects. Their success stories were published today in the New England Journal of Medicine in two reports by independent research teams1,2. When a person's kidneys stop functioning, or go into 'failure', dialysis and transplants are the only available...
learn more
