By Chayil Champion
A year ago this December, a remarkable story of love, sacrifice and family was approaching its culmination within Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
On that day, Nanette Zumwalt — a wife, mother and entrepreneur who had been battling polycystic kidney disease (PKD) — was preparing to undergo a life-changing kidney transplant. Her journey to that point was not straight forward; it took an unforeseen path of fate, love and generosity. Read the article in UCLA Health.
The 42-year-old lost more than 200 pounds and spent a decade on dialysis before receiving a new kidney last year.
By UCLA Health
Ray Jones was 31 when he was blindsided by the news that he had end-stage kidney disease. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been experiencing symptoms: He often felt sluggish and had a hard time catching his breath, and he’d also noticed swelling in his legs due to edema. At the time, though, given that he weighed about 450 pounds, he simply chalked up the symptoms as being weight-related. Read the full story from UCLA Health.
A new study identifies how certain proteins in the immune system interact leading to organ rejection. The study, which involved experiments on mice and human patients, uncovered an important communication pathway between two molecules called CEACAM1 (CC1) and TIM-3, finding that the pathway plays a crucial role in controlling the body’s immune response during liver transplantation. Read the full article from UCLA Health.