Generating solutions

Almost a million Canadians suffer from progressive disease of a vital organ, leading to premature debility and death. The complex care these patients need creates some of our most demanding health challenges, with the economic burden exceeding $10 billion per year. Recent medical advances in transplanting cells and organs have extended the lives and improved the health of many patients. However, transplant is still a high-risk, high-cost procedure. Only around 5,000 patients receive new transplants each year, of which most grafts fail prematurely.

Researchers are working with Canadian Blood Services, the national coordinator of transplant services, to propose a visionary genomics-based solution for better matching donors and recipients for kidney transplants. This solution implements a world-first epitope-based program and aims to reduce patients’ risk of organ rejection, minimize toxic immune suppression, and eliminate the need for lifelong immunosuppressive therapy. The project will be tested in British Columbia, building on previous Genome-Canada-funded work exploring the role of antibody-mediated rejection in graft failure and the key epitopes (the part of an antigen molecule that our immune systems recognize) on the donor human leukocyte antigen molecules responsible. When extended to all of Canada, the project conservatively estimates a benefit of $100 million through preventing hospitalization, premature graft loss and death.