Abe Matar and David Faber's abstracts recognized and selected for the 2021 American Transplant Congress
APRIL 2021
General surgery residents Abe Matar, MD, and David Faber, MD, have been recognized for their abstract submissions to the 2021 American Transplant Congress, scheduled as a virtual event from June 4-9. Drs. Matar and Faber's abstracts were derived from work they conducted during their research sabbaticals in the transplant immunology laboratory of former Emory transplant surgeon Andrew Adams, MD, PhD, now chief of the Division of Transplantation at the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Matar received a Young Investigator Award for his abstract describing the impact of blocking the NOTCH cell signaling pathway to prevent belatacept-resistant rejection in a non-human primate kidney transplant model. Belatacept is a second-generation immunosuppressant used in kidney transplant recipients. While it is considered a less-toxic alternative to standard calcineurin inhibitors, the drug has a higher rate of acute rejection immediately after transplant.
Dr. Matar's study investigated the synergistic effect of belatacept and blockade of DLL4 — a receptor in the NOTCH pathway — in prolonging renal allograft survival. He observed that the addition of DLL4 blockade significantly prolonged survival of the kidney allograft compared to belatacept therapy alone, leading him to conclude that this method could be a promising clinical adjunct in patients receiving belatacept immunosuppression.
This is Dr. Matar's second Young Investigator Award after receiving the honor in 2020, and will grant him complimentary registration to the congress to present the abstract.
Dr. Faber's top-rated abstract was awarded a plenary session, and evaluated the role of combined CD11b/CD40 pathway blockade in pig-to-primate kidney xenotransplantation. The study elaborated on the role of CD11b as an additional ligand, or signaling molecule, for interaction with CD154, a protein expressed on activated T cells that is known to interact with CD40. Independent blockade of either CD40 or CD154 leads to prolonged xenograft survival compared to therapy with tacrolimus, an immunosuppressant used in human kidney transplant recipients. However, the survival seen with CD154 is far superior to that of blockade with CD40, despite the fact that the two drugs block the same pathway, albeit at different points.
Dr. Faber's study found that the prolonged survival seen with combined CD11b/CD40 blockade provides further support for CD11b as an additional ligand of CD154, offering another therapeutic target for translation of kidney xenotransplantation in human clinical trials.