Lung Transplantation

Based on the statistics issued by the WHO, lung diseases are currently the 6th leading cause of death worldwide and the incidence and prevalence continue to increase. For patients with the most serious endstage lung diseases, such as COPD, the only curative therapy at the present time is lung transplantation, which is, however, only an option for an extremely select number of patients.

With lung transplantation in particular, there is an increasing mismatch between organ recipients and organ donors, which leads to a progradient mortality of the patients on the waiting list.

A further challenge in lung transplantation is that only 20-30% of those organs on offer are suitable for a transplantation and that the lung has a relatively short ischemic time of 6-10h. In addition, in about 20% of lung transplantations, the ischemia/reperfusion damage still leads in part to life-threatening transplantation failure, whereby ultimately the 5-year survival rate after lung transplantation lies at an unsatisfactory 56%.


Immunology of LuTx

The aim of the „Immunophenotyping of clinical lung recipients before and after transplantation“ project is to carry out differentiated immunomonitoring in a large cohort of patients after lung transplantation, taken from the lung transplant programs at the MHH and CPC Munich (cumulatively in 2011 >180, in 2012 >200 lung transplantations). Together with other parameters, particularly the phenotype of regulatory T-cells will be studied over time after transplantation and correlated with the clinical follow-up data.

The „Immunological transplantation tolerance“ project aims to improve already established protocols for the induction of donor-specific transplantation tolerance in the large animal transplantation model for clinical use. The mechanism of immunotolerance in this model will be further studied on the level of T-cell regulation and the knowledge gained in the lung transplantation prepared for clinical use.


Bronchiolitis obliterans Syndrom (BOS)

In the „Development of new therapeutic strategies for treatment of neutrophilic inflammation in chronic transplant dysfunction after lung transplantation“ project, a patient cohort in Hannover and Munich will be set up across locations with a joint anonymized database.
A suggested parameter for a joint anonymized database/patient cohort has been agreed across locations between Hannover and Munich.
(Research team led by Prof. Dr. Jens Gottlieb)

The „Mechanism of the Bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS)“ project uses the innovative allogenic orthotopic lung transplantation model in the mouse to induce a BOS, above all in a minor antigen-incompatible stem combination. In this model, with the assistance of suitable knockout mice, candidate molecules for relevance in BOS pathogenesis will be studied. In addition, the relevance of macrophage subpopulations and macrophage activation will be studied in chimerism experiments, as well as the significance of bacterial and viral triggers for BOS genesis.(Research team led by PD Dr. Gregor Warnecke)