Preventing rejection and ensuring survival of grafts

The success of organ transplantation depends on the lifelong use of immunosuppressive drugs to prevent rejection of the donor cells by the recipients immune system.

These immunosuppressive drugs have several limitations, most notably major side effects, namely opportunistic infections and cancers.

We have recently shown that the bacterial pathogen Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) induces the resistance of infected cells to T-cell mediated killing. This project aims to protect grafted cells from T cell-mediated killing and thereby mitigate organ rejection.

This will lay the groundwork for patent filing and the establishment of a robust business model to ensure further development and clinical translation.

This innovative approach is expected to reduce the need for immunosuppressive therapy in transplant recipients, thereby improving outcomes and quality of life for the 130,000 patients who receive transplants worldwide each year.

This proof-of-concept project is based on our recently published study (Maudet et al, Nature 2022) supported by the ERC Invadis grant.