The Rotterdam Transplantation Lab

Specialism

At the laboratory we have a wide range of assays to monitor pathways of donor directed reactivity.
The aim of this translational work is to titrate the immunosuppressive burden on our patients in such a way that side-effects (infections, malignancies, cardiovascular events) are kept at a minimum while at the same time rejection processes are prevented.

Tissue regeneration of injured and marginal donor kidneys has become a major goal. We are part of the international consortium MEPEP that studies the Role of mesenchymal stem cells to regenerate renal graft function after ischemia reperfusion injury using normothermic ex-situ machine perfusion in pig transplantation model.

In our tissue repair and injury research we also study the potential of mesenchymal stem cell vesicles and iPS-derived kidney organoids .

Cell damage due to the transplantation procedure or allograft rejection is accompanied by the release of donor-derived cell-free DNA (dd-cfDNA), nucleosomes, extracellular vesicles, and more in the patient’s blood. To exploit blood as a liquid biopsy we are developing and implementing novel technologies in the fields of dd-cfDNA, nucleosomes, extracellular vesicles and antibody based detection devices to diagnose kidney transplant rejection.