Tullius Lab

Stefan G. Tullius, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, is the Principal Investigator.  His clinical presence as Chief of Transplant Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital, strong basic research interest, and presence in the laboratory represent the translational focus of our work.

The Transplant Surgery Research Laboratory (TSRL) investigates basic mechanisms of clinically relevant aspects in organ transplantation focusing on novel routes for the improvement of organ quality and an individualized immunosuppression.

The laboratory explores mechanisms linking innate and adaptive immune response in organ transplantation.  Consequences of organ quality on immune responses and transplant outcomes are dissected in models of organ age, ischemia/reperfusion injury, and brain death.  As the idea of older donors and older recipients becomes clinical reality we are dissecting age-related changes of all immune compartments, age-specific mode of actions of immunosuppressants, and the correlation of organ age with immune responses. 

Our basic research efforts emphasize on translational aspects.  We have clinical evidence showing that both, donor and recipient age correlate to the rate of acute rejections:

For the clinical relevance of immunosenescence in organ transplantation see also; Tullius, SG: Ann Surg, 2010.

Our basic research has shown that effector T-cell immune responses are largely comprosed with increasing age while regulatory immune responses remain intact.

We have been particularly excited to see that organ age is also impacting immune responses.  Those aspects are of clinical relevance with the increased utilization of older donor organs and we are currently dessecting mechanisms linking organ age and injury to immunogenicity:

The TSRL has collaborative ties in and beyond the Harvard Medical Community and is actively cooperating with the Transplant Research Center at Brigham and Women’s and Children’s Hospital, the Vascular Biology Center at BWH,  and the Departments of Pathology and Immunology, Tufts Medical School, Boston, MA, the Department of Transplant Surgery, Vienna Medical School, Austria, and the Department of Immunology and Microbiology, University of South Carolina, Medical School.