Finding new treatments for BK virus infection in kidney transplant patients
Professor Alan Salama from University College London has received a Professor Michael Nicholson Research Project award of £170,000, co-funded by the Moross Family, to investigate a new way to tackle BK virus infection in transplant recipients to make transplants last for longer.
“This grant allows us to take our research to the next step and hopefully develop a new treatment for kidney patients. Without it, we would have an idea but no means to pursue a meaningful clinical translation”.
Professor Alan Salama
The problem
BK virus is a common infection that many people get in childhood. Once you have been infected with BK virus, it can hide or remain inactive in the kidneys without causing harm in healthy individuals. However, the virus is thought to survive in donated kidneys, and can lead to a condition called BK virus nephropathy, which can result in permanent damage to the new kidney.
At the moment, the only treatment strategy available is to reduce the immune suppressing drugs transplant recipients need to protect their donated kidney from damage by their immune system. This approach risks further damage and potential rejection of the new kidney.
The solution
Alan and the team have recently studied 200 kidney transplant recipients and their donors, which showed that there are differences in immune system protection to different strains of the BK virus. These differences can predict whether a patient is more likely to be infected.
They also found that some people have particular antibodies that can fight off all the different strains of BK. The team now want to identify these antibodies so they can produce them on a large scale and make them into a new treatment.
What could this mean for patients?
A new antibody treatment could either be given to patients who have not previously been exposed to BK virus before transplant to prevent them from ever developing the infection, or as a treatment at the first sign of infection. This would offer an important new way to protect donated kidneys from damage by this common virus.
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