Cellular and humoral immune monitoring for solid organ transplantation

Despite improved immunosuppression protocols, most transplant recipients face a variety of complications. Early post-transplant is important to discriminate between infection and rejection. Drug toxicity, chronic rejection and malignancies are long-term complications. Dr. Zeevi’s research interests are focused in the area of immunologic monitoring of solid organ transplant recipients: Cellular assay to determine the host immune competence and responses to recall antigens (CMV, EBV and other); Evaluation of T helper cell function and cytokine profile upon stimulation with donor-specific alloantigen; The impact of cytokine gene polymorphism in solid organ transplantation and its predictive value for individualized immunosuppressive protocols; The role of HLA-specific and non-HLA antibodies in solid organ transplantation; The implementation of novel  Luminex platform  C1q binding assay to detect complement fixing donor-specific anti HLA antibodies in patient sera and to correlate this functional assay with clinical outcomes including  the efficacy of protocols used to desensitize transplant candidates and/or to treat antibody mediated rejection in solid organ transplant recipients.

Clinical Expertise:  My clinical expertise is in the area of Immunogenetics and Histocompatibility. I am the Clinical Director of Tissue Typing Laboratory that serves the transplant program and I provide consultation for all solid organ and bone marrow transplantation. An important aspect of my clinical expertise is to characterize the humoral sensitization and rejection in solid organ transplants. I have over 25 years of experience with immune monitoring of solid organ transplant recipients and implementation of various assays and novel approaches to evaluate the efficacy of protocols used to desensitize transplant candidates and/or to treat antibody mediated rejection in solid organ transplant recipients.