Research Focus

The nature of transplantation leads to tissue injury as organs are damaged by the loss of blood supply and ischemia associated with the procurement procedure. The potential benefit of donor tissue and storage modification to protect organs has not been intensively investigated as mainstream approaches to improving transplant survival remains focused on pharmacological inhibition of immune cell activation.

As the discrepancy between the availability of donor organs and the increasing rate of patients who require renal transplants continues to diverge, the search for methods of prolonging renal graft survival becomes paramount. Our laboratory is focused on establishing novel strategies of minimizing post-transplant graft rejection as well as in developing cutting-edge preservation techniques to promote improved early and late renal allograft function and survival using both in vitro and in vivo models.