Regulatory T cells

Transplantation is a successful way to treat people whose own organs stop working but to prevent rejection transplant recipients have to take potent immunosuppressive drugs for the rest of their lives. Appropriate combinations of these drugs can be effective, but this requires life-long administration and results in suppression of the entire immune system non-specifically, including in some cases, the development and function of cells that have the potential to control rejection.
As a result, transplant recipients have an increased risk of cancer and infection, suffer from side-effects associated with the drug therapy and require on-going, intensive clinical management.
Understanding how the immune system is controlled when it responds to a transplant, and promoting the development and function of cells that can prevent rejection selectively hold the key to reducing the unwanted side-effects of immunosuppression.

We work with the Transplantation Research Immunology Group at the University of Oxford to address these challenges. Our programme of research focuses on how, when and where specialised cells that can control transplant rejection work and what stops them from working.
The key areas we are currently investigating include:

• Strategies for the induction of tolerance using biological therapeutic agents
• The mechanisms of tolerance particularly the role of regulatory T cells and their therapeutic potential
• Use of regulatory T cells as a cellular therapy in the TWO Study, one of the largest clinical trials in kidney transplantation
• The translation of laboratory findings to clinical transplantation through the development and validation of biomarkers for monitoring the immune status of transplant recipients

The results we obtain will also help develop new treatments for people who have autoimmune diseases, are allergic or have cancer, where controlling the immune system selectively is also critically important.