Organ transplantation is a highly successful strategy for the treatment of end-stage organ failure.
However, the average half-life of an allograft, such as a transplanted heart, remains approximately 10 years due to chronic rejection and treatment-related complications.
The major obstacle to the success of transplantation is the recognition by the recipient immune system of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules on donor tissue. There is therefore a pressing need to understand the mechanisms behind rejection as well as development of effective therapies to establish donor-specific immunological tolerance in transplant recipients.
This talk will focus on the role of exosomes in transplant rejection and on novel strategies to prolong transplant survival.