July 22, 2005

Grant advances field of cardiothoracic transplantation

In June, Joren C. Madsen, MD, DPhil, surgical director of MGH Cardiac Transplantation, received a five-year, $6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop novel ways to induce immune tolerance to heart or lung
transplants in animals. The grant — a program project grant through the NIH's National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases — will enable a team led by Madsen to conduct a range of studies using large animals, the ultimate goal of which is to develop protocols for human patients to receive heart or lung transplants without the need for immunosuppressive drugs. Drugs that suppress the immune system are critical to the success of organ transplantation because they prevent the body from rejecting the new organ as a foreign object. However, the same compounds can cause dangerous problems, including the development of cancers and certain infections. Immunosuppressive drugs also do not ever fully suppress the immune response to the transplanted organ so that most transplant recipients eventually suffer organ rejection.

Madsen will be the principal investigator for a team that includes James Allan, MD, from MGH Thoracic Surgery, Gilles Benichou, MD, of MGH Transplant Surgery, and Terry Strom, MD, from the Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center. "This award is a great honor, and represents a tremendous opportunity to advance the field of thoracic allograft transplantation," Madsen says.