A discovery which could make it easier for organs to be transplanted from animals to humans was announced Tuesday by British researchers and reported by Kuwait news agency (KUNA) Tuesday.
For the first time Scientists at London's Hammersmith Hospital have managed to block a key response, which causes the body to reject foreign transplant organs, the agency said.
A team led by professor Robert Lechler halted the immune reaction by preventing a molecular reaction between the host and foreign cells.
As a result, transplanted cells were no longer branded as being foreign. Previous attempts to solve the problem of the immune system's rejection of transplant organs had an unfortunate side effect. Other parts of the immune system were affected as well, leaving the patient unprotected against infection and disease, KUNA added.
Professor Lechler was quoted by the daily as saying "our first models using cells from the pancreas have been successful and we are now taking these findings on to further, more complex models. Eventually we hope that using foreign organs in humans may start to solve the huge shortage of organ donors across the world" – Albawaba.com
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