Faster, Less-Intrusive Way Found to Identify Transplant Recipients' Organ Rejection
Date: 11.10.2010
A simple, inexpensive blood test could soon help doctors halt organ rejection before it impairs transplanted hearts and kidneys.
"In the past, we couldn't spot rejection episodes until they harmed the organ," said Atul Butte, MD, PhD, who is co-senior author of the new research and an associate professor of medical informatics and of pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine, in addition to director of the Center for Pediatric Bioinformatics at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. "Our goal is to develop blood tests that will keep transplanted organs functioning so that patients can avoid a second transplant."
The research, which will be published online Sept. 23 in PLoS-Computational Biology, is the first-ever report of an immune-rejection signal that is shared by two kinds of transplanted organs.
BY ERIN DIGITALE
For more information:
http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2010/september/marker.html
Original Paper:
Scott T. Weiss, Rong Chen, Tara K. Sigdel, Li Li, Neeraja Kambham, Joel T. Dudley, Szu-chuan Hsieh, R. Bryan Klassen, Amery Chen, Tuyen Caohuu, Alexander A. Morgan, Hannah A. Valantine, Kiran K. Khush, Minnie M. Sarwal, Atul J. Butte. Differentially Expressed RNA from Public Microarray Data Identifies Serum Protein Biomarkers for Cross-Organ Transplant Rejection and Other Conditions. PLoS Computational Biology, 2010; 6 (9): e1000940 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000940
