News

October 26, 2020

The Transplant Research and Education Center (TREC) and Health Literacy Media have received the first-place ward in the Special COVID-19 Category at the 2020 ClearMark Awards for “Doing everything you can during COVID-19,” a comprehensive educational guide for kidney and transplant patients. The ClearMark Awards is an annual event hosted by the Center for Plain Language that celebrates achievements in plain language communications by companies, governments, and organizations across North America. Winners are invited to include the ClearMark stamp on their communications materials, signaling the highest standard for clarity and simplicity. 

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October 26, 2020 

The Transplant Research and Education Center (TREC) and the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation, with support from Thermo Fisher Scientific, announce the kickoff of a campaign to capture stories of hope and transformation through the Explore Living Donation Storytelling Project. 

(LOS ANGELES) - The Transplant Research and Education Center (TREC), in partnership with the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation and One Lambda, Inc., part of Thermo Fisher Scientific and leading producer of in vitro diagnostic products for the HLA transplant community, has launched a six-month mass media campaign for kidney and transplant patients, living donors, and medical providers to raise awareness about the innovative resources available through the Living Donation Storytelling Project. The campaign aims to capture the stories of 500 living donors and inspire, educate and promote living donor kidney transplant (LDKT).  

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October 16, 2020

Novel design and strategic use of materials in a pressure-sensitive adhesive strip

(LOS ANGELES) – In recent years, the use of wearable sensing devices has become a part of people’s everyday lives.  Devices such as smart watches, for example, can be used to monitor physical fitness functions such as heart rate, sleep and exercise. 

But advances in technology have opened many more possibilities for monitoring patient health.  Sensors can now measure important health indicators such as metabolites, oxygen or therapeutic drug levels in the blood using wearable or hand-held devices.  This allows patients an easy method of performing continuous, less invasive, real-time testing at home for diagnostic or treatment purposes.  Having such a system profoundly impacts both patient and caregivers’ needs, decreasing the requirement for frequent hospital appointments and encouraging compliance with treatment.

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October 7, 2020

Researchers develop a minimally invasive biodegradable microneedle patch as a novel delivery mode for gene therapy applications

(LOS ANGELES) - There is great potential in gene therapy for treating certain types of cancer and genetic defects, immunological diseases, wounds and infections. The therapies work by delivering genes into the patients' cells, which then produce therapeutic proteins to treat the affliction.

When determining the method of delivery for these genes, there are advantages to choosing a local, rather than systemic delivery of the genetic material. With systemic delivery, there is the possibility of unwanted tissue accumulation or of the genetic material becoming unstable. It is also advantageous to target the skin as a site for local delivery, as it is easily accessible and contains fluid and lymph vessels, as well as immune cells upon which the genetic material can act to initiate treatment.

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Septemer 23, 2020

(LOS ANGELES) - The Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation welcomes its Director and CEO, Ali Khademhosseini, PhD, who joins the institute with extensive research and leadership experience in the field of biomedical technology.  He is formerly a Professor of Bioengineering at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Professor at Harvard Medical School/MIT. He is joining the institute from Amazon, Inc, where he recently completed his sabbatical.  He is recognized as a world-renowned leader in combining micro- and nano-engineering approaches with advanced biomaterials for regenerative medicine applications and has authored over 600 peer-reviewed journal papers.  In addition, Dr. Khademhosseini is a co-founder and Scientific Board Member of Obsidio, Incorporated, a biomaterials technology startup company. 

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September 16, 2020

Researchers find their computer-tailored education system, “Your Path to Transplant” increases knowledge and readiness to pursue kidney transplant  

(LOS ANGELES) – Patients with chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease have to go to a dialysis center for hours at a time, several times a week for the rest of their lives. Patients on dialysis have strict dietary restrictions, and have difficulty maintaining a job or school with all of the hours that are spent at the dialysis center each week. Often, dialysis is the main treatment doctors tell patients about, so patients go along with it. However, a living donor kidney transplant is the most effective treatment for end-stage renal disease.  Past research has shown that doctors typically spend about a half an hour giving patients  large quantities of information all at once about transplantation, which causes patients to become overwhelmed with the decision.  

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September 9, 2020

Newly developed bioink enhances the ability of implanted cells to grow and regenerate new tissue 

(LOS ANGELES) – Engineering new tissues can be used to alleviate shortages of organs in transplantation, as well as to develop physiological models for drug discovery applications. One of the emerging approaches to building tissues is through 3D Printing, where cells and materials can be combined to make inks that can generate tissue structures. One of the limitations for making new tissues is that they require oxygen to survive. This oxygen is delivered through blood vessels, which take a few days to develop in a transplanted tissue.  

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September 4, 2020

Researchers describe ways to achieve optimal patient advocacy for kidney recipients and donors during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond 

(LOS ANGELES) – In a newly published paper, the authors first paint the vision of what optimal patient advocacy can do to overcome the challenges described by kidney transplant patients and donors, and then describe how to make that vision a reality, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Amy Waterman, Deputy Director at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation and leader of the Transplant Research and Education Center (TREC), assembled a panel of patients to learn their priorities for their care during this unprecedented time. 

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