This Meeting was held by video conference, using Zoom, which allowed it to be recorded.
The Meeting was for a presentation to be given on “The Role of Intestinal Barrier Dysfunction and the Gut Microbiota in Acute Renal Transplant Rejection”, by Professor Reza Motallebzadeh MA MB BChir MD PhD FRCS (Gen. Surgery), who is Professor of Renal Transplantation – UCL, Consultant Renal Transplantation – Royal Free London and Clinical Lead Renal Transplantation – Royal Free London.
When a patient receives an organ transplant, the immune system often identifies the donor organ as not part of itself, as if it sees an invading bacteria or virus, and targets it with T cells and antibodies made by B cells. These T cells and antibodies can be responsible for organ transplant rejection, where the transplant can lose a significant amount of its function.
To prevent rejection, transplant recipients take medications that suppress the immune system. However, every transplant patient experiences an immune reaction to the donor organ, but whether and how organ rejection occurs varies from person to person.
The intestinal tract is host to over 100 trillion microbial cells, far exceeding the total number of human host cells and each individual harbours a unique set of commensal microorganisms, collectively referred to as the microbiota. The gut is the most densely colonized microbial community in the human body and is also one of the most diverse.
Professor Reza Motallebzadeh presented some initial findings from a study of over 100 transplant recipients, whose aim is to determine in what ways the gut microbiota changes after kidney transplantation, and if this is associated with alterations in the type of immune cells in the blood that can determine if a kidney transplant is at risk of rejection.
To see a video of this presentation (on YouTube) please click the link below:
