GMEC Transplantation Programme

There is a need to improve the longevity of solid organ transplants, which has not increased significantly over the past 20 years despite advances with short-term graft survival results. The overall aim of the programme is to pool resources through GMEC and other major UK transplant centres including the MRC Centre for Transplantation, and bring about improvements in outcome prediction, with a clear plan to modify patient management based on validated predictions. This will reduce treatment complications including cancer, infection and heart disease by more judicious use of therapy and provide earlier intervention for those with greater risk of graft loss defined by our studies. GMEC will also provide a platform for organisation of trials of innovative biological treatment approaches, examples of which already exist. The GMEC network will give the critical mass needed to evaluate such studies and provide a powerful interface for liaison with industry.

Purpose of Transplantation Cluster:

• Evaluation of candidate biomarkers and novel therapeutics identified by recent investigations
• Examine the predictive value of makers in the inflammatory and immune cascade leading to long term acceptance or rejection of human organ transplants
• Evaluate adjustment of baseline treatment protocols including early minimisation of therapy on the basis of validated biomarkers
• Improve long-term outcome through investigator-led trial of novel biotherapeutics

Links

• MRC Centre for Transplantation, Kings College London
• Newcastle Biomedicine
• UCL Centre for Nephrology
• Faculty of Natural Sciences, Imperial College London
• National Heart and Lung Institute, London
• Renal and Transplantation Medicine, Imperial College London
• Nuffield Department of Surgery, Oxford University
• Transplantation Research, Immunology, Oxford University
• Cambridge Immunology, Cambridge University
• Department of Surgery, Cambridge University