News & Events

International Innovation, an online forum for the communication and dissemination of cutting-edge research, recently reported on the pioneering efforts of the Sarwal Lab to develop novel translational approaches for improving the management of kidney transplant patients and treating renal disease. The article reports on the lab's breakthrough assays, the kidney solid organ rejection test (kSORT) and the kidney spontaneous operational tolerance test (kSPOT), and their potential to revolutionize the way kidney transplant patients are managed after transplantation by predicting acute [...]

UCSF News reports that Jennifer Lai, MD, MBA, a general and transplant hepatologist and assistant clinical professor in the UCSF Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, has been honored for her "patient-oriented clinical research within the core principles of geriatrics (i.e., frailty, disability, lag-time benefit) to cirrhosis patients and liver transplant patients, organ allocation and distribution, and liver donor quality." UC San Francisco's Jennifer Lai, MD, MBA, was recently selected as a "Top 40 under 40" in the Class of 2015 by the San Francisco Business Times. She is the only [...]

KGO ABC 7 News reports on Sarah Brewster's gift of a kidney to her husband, Jesse Brewster, the latter who suffers from polycystic kidney disease (PKD). Jesse received the kidney in an a living donor kidney transplant performed by UCSF transplant surgeons in mid-February, 2015 at UCSF Medical Center. A Bay Area musician is about to get a sweet gift for Valentine's Day. Jesse Brewster has been dealing with a kidney illness for 20 years and he's about to get some help from an unexpected source. When asked if she was worried about how to take care of the one she loves, Sarah Brewster [...]

The Contra Costa Times reports on the heartrending story of Chris Schroeder (pictured center), who received a donated kidney at age 50 from his wife, and then eight years later after the transplant failed, a second donated kidney from his son. Mr. Schroeder underwent successful surgery at UCSF Medical Center in December 2014 to have the transplanted kidney implanted. His UCSF nephrologist, Flavio Vincenti, M.D.  said the rejection of the first kidney was "somewhat uncommon," and had been complicated by a rare disease "C1q nephropathy" that attacked his remaining kidney. WALNUT CREEK -- [...]

The St. Helena Star tells the story of a daughter who donated a portion of her liver to save her mother's life, part of a living donor liver transplant procedure performed by transplant surgeons at UCSF Medical Center. Kimberly St. Clair-Davis calls donating a portion of her liver to her mother, Sandy Zablosky, a "miraculous opportunity." The miraculous part to St. Clair-Davis is a scenario that defies strict mathematics. Zablosky can have her entire liver removed, St. Clair-Davis can donate 40 percent of her own liver to Zablosky and both women can be made whole. That 40 percent will [...]

A new video on AASLD TV (American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases) features the UCSF Liver Transplant Program and faculty John P. Roberts, M.D., Norah A. Terrault, M.D., M.P.H. and Francis Y.K. Yao, M.D. As a leader in the treatment of liver disease and transplantation, UCSF has performed more than 2,500 liver transplants in both children and adults, many in their growing living donor liver transplantation program. The UCSF team is also  researching cures for hepatitis as well as ways to help transplant recipients reduce their need for lifelong medication.

Successful downstaging of selected patients with HCC (hepatocellular carcinoma) before liver transplantation leads to excellent 5-year recurrence-free and overall survival rates post-transplant, according to a just-reported multicenter study led by UCSF Transplant Program investigators. Medscape Medical News reported on these results at the Liver Meeting 2014: American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) where the UCSF study findings were presented: Treating lesions with local-regional therapy allowed 119 of 187 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma to become eligible for [...]

UCSF News reports on research led by Minnie Sarwal, MD, PhD, Director of the Sarwal Lab, in developing a  test for diagnosing and predicting acute rejection (AR) in kidney transplants, a finding that eventually could replace the need for biopsies and lead to earlier detection of AR and treatment. 'We have found a set of genes in blood that pick up inflammation and acute rejection in different solid organ transplants and thus can replace the need for an invasive biopsy in the future,' said senior author Minnie Sarwal, MD, PhD, Professor of Transplant Surgery at UCSF. 'This assay also [...]

Organ transplant patients face higher risk of skin cancer according to a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle online (SFGATE): Studies show the medications increase the odds that transplant patients will acquire skin cancer by up to 100 times compared with the general population, and their risks increase every year there on out. Twenty-five percent of them will develop the potentially fatal disease at five years, and at least half will be diagnosed with it after 10 years. "It's really devastating for transplant patients, given a new lease on life from their transplant, to discover [...]

UCSF News reports on a study that found that the vast majoirty of liver transplant candidates who died or were delisted from the transplant list had previously received one or more liver donation offers:  Most liver transplant candidates who died or were removed from the transplant list actually received one or more liver donation offers, according to a recent UCSF study. "What we found challenges the simplistic view that transplant dynamics are driven simply by organ availability," said lead author, Jennifer Lai, MD, (pictured right top) assistant clinical professor in the UCSF Division [...]

UCSF News recently reported on research of the Sarwal Lab demonstrating pre-transplant antibody levels were associated with recurrence of FSGS.  Researchers at UC San Francisco and Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, may have found a predictor for a disorder affecting kidney transplant recipients that can accelerate organ failure, a discovery that eventually could allow for customized therapies and improved patient selection for transplant. The study of focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), a devastating form of kidney disease, is in the Oct. 1 issue of Science Translational [...]

Flavio Vincenti, M.D., UCSF Professor of Medicine and Surgery and a kidney and pancreas transplant specialist, is the principal investigator on a new seven-year, $17 million multicenter study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The goal of the study is to determine if certain immune system cells (regulatory T cells) and/or a drug used for treating rheumatoid arthritis can reduce or eliminate inflammation in kidney transplants thereby improving long-term health outcomes for kidney transplant recipients. "This grant allows us to work toward achieving two important advances in the [...]

"Dr. Phil Rosenthal looked around at the gaggles of happy kids playing together at the 19th annual Chris Mudge UCSF Pediatric Transplant Picnic at McNears Beach Park in San Rafael on Saturday and issued a challenge: 'I defy you to tell me who has a transplant and who doesn't have a transplant," he said. "You can't tell just by looking, and that's the whole idea of it.' " The annual picnic was held at McNears Beach in San Rafael, CA on Saturday, August 23, 2014. About 350 attendees joined in the celebration of children who are patients in the transplant program, along with their [...]

UCSF News report on a joint collaboration between UCSF and Walgreen that provides blood pressure testing at no charge to living kidney donors. While recipients of living donor kidney transplants receive steady follow-up care, the living donors themselves also need to be monitored. To make follow-up care more accessible, UC San Francisco and Walgreens (NYSE: WAG) (Nasdaq: WAG) are collaborating to launch the first program in the country that provides blood pressure testing at no charge to living kidney donors. UCSF will provide vouchers for blood pressure tests redeemable at more than [...]

In another demonstration of the Department of Surgery's commitment to global health and outreach, UCSF transplant surgeon Andrew M. Posselt, M.D., Ph.D., recently travelled to Cali, Colombia to help lay the groundwork for a laparoscopic donor nephrectomy program at the Fundacion Clinica Valle del Lili, a leading hospital in the region. Working with the transplant division chief Dr. Juan Pablo Carbonell Caicedo and his colleague Dr. Gabriel Jaime Echeverri, Dr. Posselt and the hospital's transplant team successfully performed six (6) laparoscopic donor nephrectomies in a five-day span. These [...]

The UCSF Transplant Program will have a strong presence at the World Transplant Congress (WTC), to be held July 26–31, 2014 at Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco. The WTC brings together the members of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS), The Transplantation Society (TTS) and the American Society of Transplantation (AST), providing a forum for the exchange of new scientific and clinical information relevant to solid organ and tissue transplantation. UCSF Transplant Program faculty presenting and/or moderating symposium sessions at WTC include: Nancy L. Ascher, [...]

UCSF's Kidney Transplant Program has ranked number one in the country for transplant volume, according to the newest data just released by the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR). The program, led by John Roberts, M.D., Chief of the Transplant Service and Division of Transplant Surgery at UCSF, transplanted a total of 355 adult and pediatric kidney patients from July 1, 2012 through June 30, 2013 (this includes living donor and deceased donor transplants). Established in 1964, UCSF's Kidney Transplant Program has performed more kidney transplants than any other hospital in the [...]

"Researchers studying the effects of immune suppressant drugs on transplant patients with HIV have made a surprising discovery: A drug intended to hobble the body's defense system may actually help destroy dormant reservoirs of the virus that causes AIDS In a paper published this week in the American Journal of Transplantation, authors found that when a small group of transplant patients received the drug sirolimus, they experienced a two- to threefold drop in HIV levels, whereas patients who received other immunosuppressants did not." While encouraged, lead author Peter G. Stock, M.D., [...]

UCSF News reports on the work of  Qizhi Tang, Ph.D., and other UC San Francisco researchers to develop new organ transplant strategies that better prevent rejection of donated organs. The research of Dr. Tang, Associate Professor in the Division of Transplant Surgery, and Director of the Transplantation Research Lab and Tang Lab, and colleagues, is reported on in two recently published journal articles. "Organ-transplant recipients often reject donated organs, but a new, two-pronged strategy developed by UC San Francisco researchers to specifically weaken immune responses that target [...]

A recent paper in the journal Nature, reported by UCSF News by a research team including Associate Professor Holger Willenbring, M.D., Ph.D. and Senior Resident Jack Harbell, M.D., a former postdoctoral fellow in the Willenbring lab, reports a new method of cellular reprogramming with potential for treating liver disease: The power of regenerative medicine now allows scientists to transform skin cells into cells that closely resemble heart cells, pancreas cells and even neurons. However, a method to generate cells that are fully mature – a crucial prerequisite for life-saving therapies – [...]