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Biotech / Medical : Biotransplant(BTRN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LLCF who wrote (333)	8/8/1999 11:14:00 PM
From: Pseudo Biologist	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1475

Fung JJ appears to work at the University of Pittsburgh. One of his frequent co-authors is Thomas Starzl, "Dr Transplant" in many circles. This is Rick's cute way of coming up with a Medline search query with a lot of bang for the buck re. BTRN. Here is a sample abstract (out of possible >400): Surg Clin North Am 1999 Feb;79(1):191-205 Chimerism and xenotransplantation. New concepts. Starzl TE, Rao AS, Murase N, Demetris AJ, Thomson A, Fung JJ Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. In both transplant and infectious circumstances, the immune response is governed by migration and localization of the antigen. If the antigenic epitopes of transgenic xenografts are sufficiently altered to avoid evoking the destructive force of innate immunity, the mechanisms of engraftment should be the same as those that permit the chimerism-dependent immunologic confrontation and resolution that is the basis of allograft acceptance. In addition to "humanizing" the epitopes, one of the unanswered questions is whether the species restriction of complement described in 1994 by Valdivia and colleagues also necessitates the introduction of human complement regulatory genes in animal donors. Because the liver is the principal or sole source of most complement components, the complement quickly is transformed to that of the donor after hepatic transplantation. Thus, the need for complementary regulatory transgenes may vary according to the kind of xenograft used. Much evidence shows that physiologically important peptides produced by xenografts (e.g., insulin, clotting factors, and enzymes) are incorporated into the metabolic machinery of the recipient body. To the extent that this is not true, xenotransplantation could result in the production of diseases that are analogous to inborn errors of metabolism. In the climate of pessimism that followed the failures of baboon to human liver xenotransplantation in 1992-1993, it seemed inconceivable that the use of even more discordant donors, such as the pig, could ever be seriously entertained; however, this preceded insight into the xenogeneic and allogeneic barriers that has brought transplantation infectious immunity to common ground. With this new insight and the increasing ease of producing transgenic donors, the goal of clinical xenotransplantation may not be so distant. PB