Stem cells to avoid transplant rejection

(The Boston Globe, November 18, 2013)

Transplant patients need to take powerful drugs to suppress the body’s immune system and prevent it from attacking the new organ. So even if the transplant takes, patients can become seriously sick, and even die, because of minor illnesses that a fully functioning immune system would ward off easily. Harvard Apparatus Regenerative Technology, a company from Holliston is developing a system that dramatically reduces the risk of rejection and the need to suppress the immune system. The trick is that Harvard Apparatus infuses the transplant tissue with a patient’s own stem cells before surgery, fooling the body into believing the new organ is actually its own. The company's artificial tracheas have already been implanted in six patients under special exemptions, because approval by the Food and Drug Administration and equivalent regulators in other countries is still several years off.