GVHD in Murine Models (2008)

Undergraduate: Jenelle Vargas

Faculty Advisor: Albert Baldwin
Department: Clinical Laboratory Science

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Patients that have blood and bone marrow diseases typically undergo radiation therapy as a treatment to kill tumor cells; however non-cancerous cells are also destroyed in the process. Additionally, this process is inefficient for the treatment of many diseases and relapse after therapy is common in patients with leukemia. One form of therapy that is used in this setting is bone marrow transplantation which allows for a much greater amount of therapy to be given to the individual followed by rescue of the blood compartment using bone marrow or stem cells. However, bone marrow transplantation is limited by GVHD due to the recognition of antigen differences presented by MHC proteins by the recipient that are recognized by donor T cells. Thus new approaches to block GVHD are critically important in improving the outcome of stem cell transplantation. Compound A and PR171 are two drugs used this study in an attempt to treat GVHD in murine models.