UCLA receives $8.4 million NIH grant to help liver transplant recipients stay healthier longer

UCLA has received an $8.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to research ways to help donated livers last longer and improve outcomes for transplant recipients.The five-year grant is the fourth in a series from the NIH to the Dumont –UCLA Transplant Center to develop medications to prevent the body from rejecting a transplanted liver and help patients live longer, healthier lives. The grants have totaled more than $13 million.The initiative is headed by Dr. Jerzy Kupiec-Weglinski, the Paul I. Terasaki Chair in Surgery and vice chair of research at the Department of Surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. The project brings together the expertise and experience of researchers from the UCLA departments of surgery, pathology and laboratory medicine, and microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics.UCLA HealthDr. Jerzy Kupiec-Weglinski“There are less than 10 program project grants in the country funded by the NIH that are related to organ transplantation, so this is a big deal,” Kupiec-Weglinski said. “Through this project, we believe we will develop novel therapeutic strategies that can be directly applied in transplant pa tients.”  Around 6,000 liver transplant surgeries are performed every year in the U.S., and UCLA ’s liver transplant program was the nation’s fourth busiest last year, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. UCLA doctors performed 161 liver transplants in 2016. The UCLA division of liver and panc...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news