Research and Clinical Trials
UC San Diego Health System Center for Transplantation is well known for its research efforts that produce a steady stream of new scientific knowledge and medical advancements. More importantly, our research is being translated into new lifesaving surgical techniques, medical management, diagnostic tools and medications that reverse organ damage and halt rejection.
Successes
Our surgeons were of the first in the world to perform domino liver transplantation, ex vivo liver resection and re-implantation, and the first in San Diego to perform split liver transplantation. Now measuring multiple thousands, we performed San Diego’s first kidney transplant in 1968. Our transplant team performed its first heart-lung transplant in 1990 and its first double-lung transplant the following year. Three years later, we performed the first infant heart transplant in San Diego.
UC San Diego Health System transplant faculty are currently involved in research including:
- Cell based therapies for type 1 diabetes (beta cell transplantation)
- Utilizing desensitization protocols for patients who have high rejection risk
- Photopheresis for the treatment of graft-versus-host disease and lung transplant rejection.
- Improvements in treatment of mantle cell lymphoma
- The improved use of steroids as part of immunosuppressive therapy following kidney transplantation
- Procedures to reduce pancreatitis in transplanted pancreases
- Pelvic reconstructive surgery for pelvic organ prolapse in kidney transplant recipients
- Refinement in immunosuppression to mitigate recurrence and severity of hepatitis C after liver transplant
- Bioartificial livers
- Management of immune suppression after solid organ transplantation
View titles and abstracts of scientific articles on transplantation at PubMed written by UC San Diego Health System faculty.
UC San Diego Health System Research Laboratories
Clinical Trials
Clinical trials are highly regulated health-related research studies that move advances in the treatment of injuries and conditions forward into clinical practice. They offer people the chance to receive newly developed therapies and provide crucial information to medical scientists. We are currently conducting clinical trials in a broad spectrum of topics related to transplantation. Find clinical trials at UC San Diego Health System currently seeking participants.
