UPMC and University of Pittsburgh clinician-scientists have weaned and kept multiple liver transplantation patients off of all immunosuppressant drugs for more than three years through a first-in-human clinical trial of a unique “immune priming” therapy.

Results of the small, early-stage trial are reported today in Nature Communications. They confirm that it is feasible, safe and preliminarily effective to give living donor liver transplant recipients an infusion of immune cells derived from their donor a week before transplantation and then, one year later in eligible patients, start to remove the immunosuppression drugs that prevent organ rejection.

https://www.upmc.com/media/news/041726-donor-livers