Toward Personalized Medicine for Kidney Transplant Recipients

Flavio Vincenti, M.D., UCSF Professor of Medicine and Surgery and a kidney and pancreas transplant specialist, is the principal investigator on a new seven-year, $17 million multicenter study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The goal of the study is to determine if certain immune system cells (regulatory T cells) and/or a drug used for treating rheumatoid arthritis can reduce or eliminate inflammation in kidney transplants thereby improving long-term health outcomes for kidney transplant recipients.

“This grant allows us to work toward achieving two important advances in the transplant field,” said Vincenti. “We can introduce personalized medicine by treating patients based on molecular profiling of their kidney. We also can allow control of the response to the transplant by the patients’ own immune systems by regulatory T cells, either through infusions or pharmacologically.”   (quoted section from UCSF News story)