The Section of Abdominal Transplantation, directed by William C. Chapman, M.D., maintains a strong interest in basic and clinical research related to liver, kidney and pancreas transplantation and non-transplant surgical conditions. Chapman's basic research interests focus on signaling events important in multi-system injury following liver ischemia reperfusion injury. A second project area involves the development of image-guided liver surgery for use in liver resection and tumor-ablative procedures. Each of these project areas has been funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants. Chapman is the principal investigator for a number of multi-center clinical trials investigating improved strategies for immunosuppression following liver transplantation. He is also the principal investigator of a registry trial investigating use of liver transplantation for unresectable hilar cholangiocarcinoma, a novel strategy with promising early results.
Thalachallour Mohanakumar, Ph.D., director of Clinical HLA Laboratories, has an extensive research program in the areas of transplantation and tumor immunology. Current projects include studies of the immunopathogenesis of bronchiolitis obliterans in both human and animal models, molecular mechanisms of human anti-porcine xenograft immunity, immune response to hepatitis C virus following liver transplantation, role of HLA sensitization following islet cell transplantation, use of naturally occurring free fatty acids in modulating immune responses in diabetes and tumor immune responses in human breast cancer. Mohanakumar's research program currently is supported by grants from the NIH, department of defense, and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International. His research plays an extremely important role in the transplantation program at Washington University and represents a bench-to-bedside effort that collaborates closely with the clinical programs of the BJC HealthCare system. Numerous postdoctoral fellows have gained outstanding experience in his laboratory over the past 21 years.
Christopher Anderson, M.D., has a basic and clinical science interest related to adult and pediatric liver transplantation. Specifically, his lab is interested in understanding the pathophysiology of ischemia and reperfusion injury in steatotic livers. He has specific interests in the effects of endoplasmic reticulum stress, lipid metabolism and hyperglycemia on cold ischemia and reperfusion injury. Furthermore, his lab is interested in investigating the role of innate immune processes in acute ischemic injury. His clinical studies focus on outcome studies in pediatric and adult liver transplant, cholangiocarcinoma and hepatocellular carcinoma.
Jeffrey Lowell, M.D., associate director of the Section of Transplantation, has interest in clinical outcomes, research and pharmaco-economics. He also directs the pediatric transplant effort at St. Louis Children's Hospital and maintains active clinical investigations as part of that effort.
Surendra Shenoy, M.D., director of the Living Donation Program, has several active clinical projects investigating novel approaches of immunosuppression. In addition, he actively investigates new approaches for vascular access in the setting of hemodialysis.
Martin Jendrisak, M.D., director of the Adult Renal Transplant Program, has ongoing research interest in transplant immunology related to kidney transplantation. In addition, Jendrisak and Shenoy have developed a mini-laparotomy nephrectomy procedure for kidney donation in liver-related transplantation.