Congratulations to Dr. Stabler whose article on contagious biomaterials was selected as a featured article under Editor’s Choice in Science Translational Medicine.
Thousands of patients die each year while waiting for an organ transplant, in part because of incompatibility with available donor organs. Even those lucky enough to find a match must take anti-rejection drugs, which have major side effects such as increased susceptibility to cancer and infection, and often fail over time. To address these challenges, attempts have been made to promote specific immune tolerance to a donor organ through delivery or local activation of regulatory T cells (Tregs). One way to achieve Treg activation in the vicinity of a transplanted organ would be to release the cytokine transforming growth factor–β1 (TGF-β1), but its propensity to promote scarring has hampered its clinical translation.
Read the full article on the Science Translational Medicine website.
Link to original article: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142961215005852