Researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine have developed a new nanotechnology-based immunotherapy that promotes long-term transplant acceptance in an animal model.

The development, which is described in the journal Immunity, could transform patient care and provide a solution to the problems that stand in the way of successful transplant outcomes.

If this can be successfully translated to the clinic, this may eliminate the need for lifelong, continuous immunosuppressive medication and provide a promising solution for successful organ transplantation”
Jordi Ochando, study author

A transplanted organ is rejected by the body when innate immune cells called myeloid cells induce T-cells to attack it. To prevent this immune response, patients must take drugs that suppress this T-cell activity, but this dampening down of the patient’s immune system leaves them vulnerable to infection and cancer. The patients also have to take more than a dozen pills every day for the remainder of their lives.

Now, Ochando and colleagues have developed a nano-immunotherapy that targets myeloid cells and prevents their activation and their triggering of T-cells. The T-cells are unaffected by the therapy and maintain their usual function, but without attacking the transplanted organ.