Tailoring Mesenchymal Stromal Cell Therapy to Rescue Marginal DCD Livers for Transplantation

Today 25% of patients listed for liver transplantation die waiting for a liver to become available. The donor organ pool could be expanded by rescuing the 50% of livers donated after cardiac death (DCD) that are discarded due to the injury caused by prolonged periods of warm ischemia during organ retrieval. Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (MSC) reduce inflammation and promote tissue repair. The intern will establish conditions to generate MSC (pig and human) with the most potent anti-inflammatory profile and generate stocks of pig MSC for commercialization by the Industrial Biodevelopment Laboratory. The will use the optimally activated MSC to treat inflammation in pig DCD livers on perfusion unit and subsequently in a pig transplant model. The ultimate goal is to establish protocols to rescue marginal human DCD livers with MSC treatment in the clinic to expand the donor organ pool by an estimated 20% thereby saving the lives of patients awaiting transplantation.

Faculty Supervisor:

Armand Keating

Student:

Agata Bartczak

Partner:

Industrial BioDevelopment Laboratory

Discipline:

Medicine

Sector:

Life sciences

University:

University of Toronto