News

February 1, 2021

(LOS ANGELES) – There are many mechanisms by which the body responds to foreign invaders.  One of these involves the T-cells of the immune system, which have a number of different proteins on their surface called “checkpoint proteins.”  These checkpoint proteins bind to proteins on the surface of other cells and can result in either stimulation or suppression of T-cell activity.  Normally, surface proteins on foreign or invading cells will produce a stimulation of T-cell activity against these cells, while T-cell suppression is a built-in mechanism to prevent the immune system from attacking the body’s own normal cells.  

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January 19, 2021

With 2020 winding down, let’s take a moment to reflect on all that we have accomplished this year for the transplant and living donation community. Together with our partners, we launched the COVID-19 Kidney / Transplant Listening and Resource Center, designed new education for living donors and transplant recipients in partnership with the community, presented our work on digital storytelling and innovative education tools at talks and conferences hosted by the American Transplant Congress, Astellas Pharma Inc., One Lambda Inc., the 2020 Canadian Society of Transplantation Virtual Forum, and continued training new researchers and scientists in the field. We also published more than 20 new papers, book chapters, abstracts, and commentaries. This year we faced unprecedented challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but we were able to pull together to meet those challenges in new and innovative ways to support highly at-risk patients. The transition to the remote environment has led us to some of our best projects yet!

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January 15, 2021

At TIBI and at Transplant Research and Education Center (TREC), we believe that rapid communication of information about COVID-19 vaccination to transplant patients and ongoing monitoring of patient outcomes are two important ways to keep patients safe as we move forward into 2021. 

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November 25, 2020

The Transplant Research and Education Center (TREC), in partnership with the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation and One Lambda Inc., on October 21^st launched a 6-month mass media campaign to raise awareness about the Living Donation Storytelling Project. The campaign seeks to reach kidney and transplant patients, living donors, and nephrology, dialysis, and transplant professionals across the nation to help them learn about the innovative educational resources available through the Living Donation Storytelling Project. The Living Donation Storytelling Project is an online digital library of video stories recorded by real living donors, recipients, family members, and those in need of a kidney.

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November 20, 2020

On November 5th, five million people watched the premiere of a new CBS show about living donation! “B Positive” is a new comedy sitcom following one man’s living donation journey. Drew, a therapist and single dad, is shocked to find out his kidneys are failing and he’s in urgent need of a transplant. With a rare blood type and lacking friends or family to ask to be his donor, Drew feels hopeless until he runs into an old high school acquaintance—Gina. Gina spontaneously offers to be his donor in her quest to do something bigger than herself.  

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October 26, 2020

Dual-organ system enables the measurement of cardiac toxicity arising from breast cancer chemotherapy 

(LOS ANGELES) – Breast cancer is the most commonly occurring cancer for women around the world, and much effort has been spent in the development of therapies to treat this disease. Among these treatments, chemotherapy has been shown to be among the most effective methods; however, the drugs used in these therapies can have adverse side effects, the most serious of which is toxicity to the heart.  In addition to tissue damage to the heart, chemotherapeutic breast cancer drugs can also affect the heart’s pumping ability or result in clinical heart failure. 

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