{"id":11961,"date":"2021-07-20T07:50:16","date_gmt":"2021-07-20T12:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/?p=11961"},"modified":"2021-07-20T07:50:16","modified_gmt":"2021-07-20T12:50:16","slug":"freshly-funded-congratulations-to-dr-megan-levings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/en\/freshly-funded-congratulations-to-dr-megan-levings\/","title":{"rendered":"Freshly funded: Congratulations to Dr. Megan Levings"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-1 fusion-flex-container nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling\" style=\"--awb-border-radius-top-left:0px;--awb-border-radius-top-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-left:0px;--awb-flex-wrap:wrap;\" ><div class=\"fusion-builder-row fusion-row fusion-flex-align-items-flex-start fusion-flex-content-wrap\" style=\"max-width:1216.8px;margin-left: calc(-4% \/ 2 );margin-right: calc(-4% \/ 2 );\"><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-0 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-flex-column\" style=\"--awb-bg-size:cover;--awb-width-large:100%;--awb-margin-top-large:0px;--awb-spacing-right-large:1.92%;--awb-margin-bottom-large:0px;--awb-spacing-left-large:1.92%;--awb-width-medium:100%;--awb-order-medium:0;--awb-spacing-right-medium:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-medium:1.92%;--awb-width-small:100%;--awb-order-small:0;--awb-spacing-right-small:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-small:1.92%;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-column-has-shadow fusion-flex-justify-content-flex-start fusion-content-layout-column\"><div class=\"fusion-image-element \" style=\"text-align:center;--awb-caption-title-font-family:var(--h2_typography-font-family);--awb-caption-title-font-weight:var(--h2_typography-font-weight);--awb-caption-title-font-style:var(--h2_typography-font-style);--awb-caption-title-size:var(--h2_typography-font-size);--awb-caption-title-transform:var(--h2_typography-text-transform);--awb-caption-title-line-height:var(--h2_typography-line-height);--awb-caption-title-letter-spacing:var(--h2_typography-letter-spacing);\"><span class=\" fusion-imageframe imageframe-dropshadow imageframe-1 hover-type-none\" style=\"-webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 7px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);box-shadow: 3px 3px 7px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" title=\"CDTRP Featured Publications\" src=\"https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/CDTRP-Featured-Publications.png\" data-orig-src=\"https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/CDTRP-Featured-Publications-1024x576.png\" alt class=\"lazyload img-responsive wp-image-11963\" srcset=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%27%20width%3D%271600%27%20height%3D%27900%27%20viewBox%3D%270%200%201600%20900%27%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%271600%27%20height%3D%27900%27%20fill-opacity%3D%220%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/CDTRP-Featured-Publications-200x113.png 200w, https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/CDTRP-Featured-Publications-400x225.png 400w, https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/CDTRP-Featured-Publications-600x338.png 600w, https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/CDTRP-Featured-Publications-800x450.png 800w, https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/CDTRP-Featured-Publications-1200x675.png 1200w, https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/CDTRP-Featured-Publications.png 1600w\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-orig-sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/span><\/div><div class=\"fusion-separator fusion-full-width-sep\" style=\"align-self: center;margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto;margin-top:30px;margin-bottom:30px;width:100%;\"><div class=\"fusion-separator-border sep-double sep-solid\" style=\"--awb-height:20px;--awb-amount:20px;border-color:#e0dede;border-top-width:1px;border-bottom-width:1px;\"><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-text fusion-text-1\"><h4>Freshly funded: Congratulations to Dr. Megan Levings<\/h4>\n<p>Congratulations to PIs <strong>Megan Levings, Esm\u00e9 Dijke <\/strong>and<strong> Lori West<\/strong> and their team for their success in the <strong>CIHR Team Grant competition<\/strong> &#8220;Preparation to Trial: Inflammation for Chronic Conditions&#8221;.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Project title<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Allogeneic thymus-derived Tregs to prevent chronic inflammation in transplantation<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Abstract<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>A process called immune tolerance allows the immune system to fend off dangerous foreign substances yet leave the body&#8217;s own tissues untouched. When immune tolerance fails, autoimmune diseases and\/or chronic inflammation occur. There are no medications that promote or replicate immune tolerance. This is particularly problematic for transplant recipients, whose immune systems must be suppressed with medications to prevent rejection. As a result, transplant recipients must live with impaired immune tolerance and chronic inflammation. Our goal is to move beyond symptom management and find long-term solutions. We have been working towards this goal by developing a therapy that takes advantage of a specialized type of white blood cell, called regulatory T cells, or Tregs, which suppress undesired immune responses and promote the formation of an appropriately balanced immune system. Tregs are rare in circulating blood, but we have shown that an organ called the thymus (which is routinely removed and discarded during heart surgery) is an abundant source of easily-isolated, pure Tregs. We have shown that thymus Tregs have beneficial effects in mouse models of transplantation, and now, we aim to conduct a clinical trial to determine if thymus Tregs are a safe and effective way to prevent immune complications after bone marrow transplantation. Data from this proposal will show how to best design the trial and how to best match donor thymus Tregs to the patient. Once we establish safety and effectiveness of thymus Tregs in the context of transplantation, we will be able to extend off-the-shelf Treg therapy to many other inflammatory diseases.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/webapps.cihr-irsc.gc.ca\/decisions\/p\/project_details.html?applId=441646&amp;lang=en\">More info here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11961"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11961"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12031,"href":"https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11961\/revisions\/12031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cdtrp.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}