T Cells to Induce Liver Tolerance (TILT)

Principal Investigators

Roberto Gedaly MD, Chief of Transplantation Division – Department of Surgery
Francesc Marti, PhD, Associate Professor – Department of Surgery

How to Join

Meeting Times

Alternating: third Monday at 5 p.m. and third Monday at 8 a.m.

Summary

The T cells to Induce Liver Tolerance (TILT) alliance was recently created to support translational and clinical research in transplant/immunology related to the use of cell immunotherapy to induce tolerance in solid organ transplantation. The co-leaders of this alliance, Roberto Gedaly, MD, chief of the transplant center, and Francesc Marti, PhD, chief of the transplant cell immunotherapy program in the division of transplantation at the University of Kentucky, have been working together for more than six years. Their clinical and translational research program has established fruitful collaborations with other departments and divisions in our institution, including biochemistry; microbiology, immunology, and molecular genetics; radiology; biomedical engineering, internal medicine, hepatology, nephrology, and pathology. They are currently running a novel, FDA-approved, pilot study of adoptive transfer of ex vivo expanded regulatory T cells (Tregs) in kidney transplant recipients (ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT03284242). This is the only active clinical pilot study using Treg cells in solid-organ transplantation in the state of Kentucky and the Appalachian region and one of the only six active protocols using this technology in the U.S. The ultimate goal is to eventually reduce or completely stop drug-induced immunosuppression, which has significant toxicity in patients. They are currently generating data addressing the implementation of a first-in-class clinical trial in liver transplant patients to induce hepatic tolerance. As part of this project, they are mentoring junior faculty from the departments of radiology (Aman Khurana, MD) and biomedical engineering (Fanny Chapelin, PhD). Currently, this collaboration focuses on the optimization and validation of a novel non-invasive cell tracking system for T cell-based immunotherapy using MR imaging. They are also working together with the biospecimen bank and tissue procurement shared resource facility of the Markey Cancer Center using the GEOMx digital spatial profiler platform to study the phenotypic and mRNA abundance of liver resident Treg cells in the normal and transplanted liver allograft.

Alliance Members

Fanny Chapelin PhD, Research Assistant Professor – College of Engineering
Virgilius Cornea, MD, Associate Professor – Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Daniel Davenport, PhD, Professor – Department of Surgery
Roberto Gedaly MD, Chief of Transplantation Division – Department of Surgery
Meera Gupta, MD, Assistant Professor – Department of Surgery
Aman Khurana, MD, Assistant Professor – Department of Radiology
Francesc Marti, PhD, Associate Professor – Department of Surgery
Javier Neyra, MD, Associate Professor – Department of Internal Medicine
Malay Shah, MD, Associate Professor – Department of Surgery
Arnold Stromberg, PhD, Professor – College of Arts and Sciences
Joseph Zwischenberger, MD, Professor – Department of Surgery