Roche Organ Transplantation Research Foundation (ROTRF) awarded a three-year grant of 300,000 Swiss francs (approximately $240,000) to Nicholas Zavazava, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of internal medicine in the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, for a study that could help lead to new therapies to prevent organ rejection in recipients.
The average survival rate for grafts (donated organs) is approximately 90 percent within the first year for patients treated at most centers in the United States. However, 10 years after transplantation, less than 50 percent of the grafts in patients survive. Immunosuppressive drugs can help make a recipient's immune system accept and maintain a donor organ, but the drugs themselves can ultimately contribute to rejection or death.
Specifically, the grant will support Zavazava's work on animal models to understand how embryonic stem cells are accepted into a recipient cell system and are able to differentiate, that is, grow into all types of tissues. Embryonic cells do not cause the body's immune system to attack and, thus, have the potential to develop into white blood cells that will be compatible with a donated organ. These new white blood cells then can function in a recipient without the need for immunosuppressive drugs.
Zavazava staffs a clinic in the Division of Allergy and Immunology and a clinic in travel medicine, both in the UI Department of Internal Medicine. He also is vice director of the Iowa Regional Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics Laboratory at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Iowa City.
In addition to the UI, three other institutions in the United States received ROTRF grants, including Yale University School of Medicine, Stanford University and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa Health Science Relations, 5137 Westlawn, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1178
The Roche Organ Transplantation Research Foundation is a non-profit, independent medical foundation dedicated to advancing the field of solid organ transplantation by supporting research with operating grants. For more information about ROTRF, visit http://www.ROTRF.org.
For more information on Zavazava's research, see this UI news release:
http://www.uiowa.edu/~ournews/2002/february/0201zavazava.html
University of Iowa Health Care describes the partnership between the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and UI Hospitals and Clinics and the patient care, medical education and research programs and services they provide. Visit UI Health Care online at www.uihealthcare.com.