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A step closer to effective transplant tolerance?

Nature Medicine volume 18, pages 664–665 (2012)Cite this article

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Laurence A Turka & Jeffrey A Bluestone

In 1960, Medawar and Burnet received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of acquired immune tolerance. Many felt that immune tolerance would soon be achieved in the clinic, solving the problem of organ graft rejection, but this remains an elusive goal. Although it is relatively easy to induce transplantation tolerance in rodents, few approaches have shown success in people, partly due to the robust alloimmune response. Thus, effective tolerance induction requires elimination of alloreactive cells and establishment of a noninflammatory environment, which promotes active immune regulation in the context of graft antigens. So far, only the induction of mixed chimerism via bone marrow transplantation (BMT) or stem cell transplantation, pioneered by Ildstad and Sachs almost 30 years ago2, has worked in humans.

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Competing interests

L.A.T.'s wife is an employee of Novartis, and the two of them own stock in the company. The other authors declare no conflict of interest.

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A step closer to effective transplant tolerance?. Nat Med 18, 664–665 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.2770

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