“When he was a medical trainee, UCLA Health nephrologist Erik Lum, MD, was part of a team at Stanford University exploring how to create “tolerance” in kidney-transplant patients — a process that encourages the body to welcome the new organ without the necessity for a lifelong regimen of anti-rejection drugs.
Now, Dr. Lum is among the leaders of a multidisciplinary team making transplant tolerance a reality at UCLA Health. Two kidney transplants have been performed thus far under the advanced protocol, making UCLA Health one of only five medical centers in the world capable of the groundbreaking approach hailed as “the Holy Grail” of transplantation.
“It requires a lot of interplay between different divisions,” Dr. Lum says. “To me, it really demonstrates the strength of a place like UCLA. You can’t do this just anywhere. It’s a huge collaboration.”
The protocol brings together a broad range of specialties, including nephrology, urology, hematology, radiation oncology and others, for a series of treatments that prime the transplant recipient’s body to accept the new organ.”
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