Lab Overview and MembershipNotable ProjectsLab Contact Details

 Lab Overview and Membership

Co-directed by Dr. Christian Larsen and Dr. Thomas Pearson, the Transplantation Immunology Laboratory at Emory is studying the immunologic mechanisms of transplant rejection and immunologic tolerance with the hope of achieving true immune tolerance. Grants from the NIH (including a Program Project Grant), The Mason Foundation, the National Science Foundation and private industry fund the lab's projects, the significant results of which have been published in Nature, The Journal of Experimental Medicine, The Journal of Immunology, The Journal of Clinical Investigation and Transplantation.

Currently, Dr. Larsen, Dr. Pearson and additional Department of Surgery faculty members Dr. Mandy Ford, Dr. Shivaprakash Gangappa, Dr. Allan Kirk, Dr. Robert Mittler, Dr. Kenneth Newell and Dr. Nicole Turgeon are investigating the role that activated T lymphocytes play in the rejection of allograft tissues and how costimulatory pathways contribute to the process. Dr. Collin Weber's focus is pancreatic islet transplantation, the long-term goal being to develop techniques for safe and durable islet cell replacement for patients with insulin dependent diabetes mellitus.

Other members of the lab include faculty from the Emory University School of Medicine that are also basic science researchers at the Emory Transplant Center:

		Dr. Neal Iwakoshi, assistant professor in the Department of Surgery, is investigating ways of manipulating protein responses in transplant rejection and inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
		The only physician in the U.S. formally trained in both hand surgery and transplant surgery, Dr. Linda Cendales directs the Emory Transplant Center's Laboratory of Microsurgery and Composite Tissue Transplantation (CTA). CTA is the re-transplantation of multiple tissues such as skin, muscle, bone, nerve, and tendon as a functional unit, such as a limb. Dr. Cendales is working to advance this burgeoning discipline from the bench to the bedside and plans on training the next experts in the procedure.
		Dr. Leslie Kean, assistant professor in the division of hematology, oncology and bone marrow transplantation of the Department of Pediatrics, is studying tolerance-induction after solid organ and bone marrow transplantation and the role that the immune system has in transplant rejection.
		Dr. Kenneth Kokko, a transplant nephrologist with joint appointments in the Department of Medicine and Department of Surgery, is investigating the impact of immunosuppressive agents on the ability of transplant patients to respond to viral infections.
		Dr. David Neujahr, assistant professor in the Department of Pulmonology and associate medical director of lung transplantation, is researching immune regulation in lung transplant patients.
		Dr. Allan Ramirez, assistant professor of medicine, is examining the mechanisms of chronic rejection in lung transplantation.
		An assistant professor and McKelvey Scholar of the Department of Pediatrics, Dr. Mark Rigby is investigating mechanisms of immunopathogenisis and tolerance induction in Type 1 diabetes.

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 Notable Projects

Collaborative Network for Clinical Research on Immune Tolerance
JDRF Center of Islet Transplantation
Development of LEA29Y
Protective Immunity Project

Collaborative Network for Clinical Research on Immune Tolerance

In 1999, Emory’s kidney transplantation program was selected by the NIH to participate in the Immune Tolerance Network, a nationwide alliance of transplant research centers conducting clinical trials designed to uncover the basic biological features of clinical tolerance. Dr. Larsen directs the interaction between the kidney programs within the network.

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JDRF Center of Islet Transplantation

The immunology lab is part of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Center of Islet Transplantation at Emory, which was launched in 2002 with a $4.1 million grant from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) for the purpose of reducing the requirements for immunosuppressive drugs in islet transplants while increasing the supply of donated islets. The center received additional five-year funding from the JDRF of nearly $8.5 million in 2006. Dr. Larsen directs the center and Dr. Weber, deeply involved in diabetes research for over 25 years, is its co-principal investigator. In 2003, Drs. Larsen and Pearson performed the first successful islet transplant in Georgia for a patient with Type 1 diabetes. As of February 2007, Emory transplant surgeons had performed 16 successful islet transplant procedures into nine patients.

In March 2007, the JDRF awarded the Emory Transplant Center a $2.5 million grant over three years to develop pig islets as an alternative to human donor islets. The grant will fund development of a nonhuman primate model at Yerkes National Primate Research Center, an effort that will involve faculty of the Immunology Lab and the Emory JDRF Center. If successful, the research will proceed to clinical trials in humans.

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Development of LEA29Y

In 2005, Drs. Larsen and Pearson collaborated with colleagues at Bristol-Meyers Squibb to develop LEA29Y (belatacept), an investigational medication that is proving effective in preserving transplanted kidney function while avoiding toxic side effects of such immunosuppressive drugs as cyclosporine, primarily by selectively blocking the second of two cellular signals the body needs to trigger an immune response. The success of pre-clinical research conducted with nonhuman primates at the Yerkes Research Center led to human clinical trials, with the immunology lab completing a phase II clinical study that compared LEA29Y with cyclosporine in human kidney transplant patients.

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Protective Immunity Project

In 2005, Dr. Larsen and Dr. Rafi Ahmed received a biodefense contract to study protective immunity in transplant recipients. The five-year, $10.1 million contract consists of three projects: (1) characterization of the impact of immunosuppression on immune memory, (2) exploring the impact of immunosuppression on the immune response to influenza vaccination, and (3) characterization of the immune response to vaccination challenge in immunosuppressed non-human primates.

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 Lab Contact Details

Dr. Christian Larsen
Telephone: 404.727.8466

Dr. Thomas Pearson
Telephone: 404.727.8464

Transplant Immunology Laboratory
101 Woodruff Circle, #5105-WMB
Atlanta, GA 30322

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