News by Subject Medicine & Health

Delivering mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) along with therapeutic stem cells has the potential to reduce host-vs-graft disease and transplant rejection, but MSCs have been plagued by high clearance from the body and immune attack. A new hydrogel-based encapsulation method developed at the Wyss Institute not only protects MSCs from immune attack and clearance, but dramatically improved the success of bone marrow transplants in mice, paving the way for more effective cell therapies.

New research from UPMC and Pitt shows that living-donor liver transplant offers numerous advantages over deceased-donor transplant, including superior outcomes and less resource utilization.

Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina discovered a way to improve immune-based treatments by modulating T-cells. The advancement can help increase anti-tumor efficiency of T-cell therapy and protect patients from graft-versus-host disease resulting from hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Nerve transfer surgery has enabled 13 young adults with complete paralysis to regain movement and function in their elbows and hands, according to the largest case series of this technique in people with tetraplegia (paralysis of both the upper and lower limbs), published in The Lancet.

Researchers at EPFL have developed a method to stimulate human stem cells to organize themselves into ordered layers of different cell types. Published in Nature Methods, the method is based on microfluidics and can help better understand how tissues are formed in the embryo, setting the stage for fabricating functional tissues and organs for drug testing and transplantation.

Implemented in 2005, the lung allocation score is used to prioritize patients awaiting lung transplants in the US. Sicker transplant candidates have a higher calculated score and are placed at the top of the list. But a recent study led by Maryam Valapour, M.D., MPP, director of Lung Transplant Outcomes in Cleveland Clinic's Respiratory Institute, found including new clinical variables helped to better identify the sickest cystic fibrosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients awaiting transplants.