Haspot - ASBMT


		Massachusetts General Scientist Wins ASBMT/AST Research Grant Fabienne Haspot, PhD, a post-doctoral fellow in transplantation and immunology at Massachusetts General Hospital is the recipient of a clinical research fellowship grant from ASBMT and the American Society of Transplantation. The $80,000 grant is the first fellowship to be jointly sponsored by the two societies. It will be paid over two years. Dr. Haspot and colleagues are evaluating a new approach to inducing “mixed hematopoietic chimerism” – a state in which bone marrow cells from both the transplant donor and recipient co-exist in the recipient. Previous experiments in mice undergoing bone marrow transplantation have found that a combination of low-dose radiation and a specific antibody causes a key population of immune cells, specifically T-cells, to develop tolerance to the transplant donor’s cells. The main goal of the planned research is to understand the process by which one population of T-cells – the cytotoxic CD8 cells – become tolerant of donor cells. The researchers plan a series of experiments examining patterns of gene expression in CD8 cells that are tolerant of donor cells, compared to CD8 cells that attack donor cells. There is evidence that a unique gene pathway – known as the PD-1/PD1-L pathway – may play an important role in “tolerizing” CD8 cells. It’s hoped that this will help in developing new conditioning regimens, used to help prevent transplant patients’ immune systems from rejecting donor organs or bone marrow. The researchers also think their experiments can lend new insights into the processes by which normal CD8 cells act to reject donor bone marrow. Ultimately, Dr. Haspot and colleagues hope their research will lead to reliable, less toxic approaches to inducing chimerism in transplant recipients. Eventually, this type of approach could improve compatibility between the recipient’s immune system and the donor’s tissues, thus improving survival of organ transplants.