Transplantation: Cancer: Web alert

✍ Scribed by David R Greaves

• Book ID: 104359001
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 17 KB
• Volume: 11
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0952-7915
• DOI: 10.1016/s0952-7915(99)00021-7

✦ Synopsis

In an issue containing reviews on immunology at the millennium, it is valuable to contemplate the advances we have made in our understanding of the immune system and sobering to realise how few practical applications this basic knowledge has brought us. The two topics reviewed in this issue, cancer and transplantation, offer many opportunities for the development of novel immunotherapies.

Transplantation

Currently there are many more patients awaiting transplants than there are HLA-matched donors. There are several websites written for transplantation donors and recipients, some of which give an introduction to the immunology of transplantation rejection and mechanisms of tolerance.

University of Michigan Transplant Center

http://www.med.umich.edu/trans/public/ An excellent website from the University of Michigan Transplantation Center. I particularly liked the sections "Understanding Tissue Typing" and "HLA Matching, Antibodies and You", which are written for non-immunologists.

Transweb http://www.transweb.org/ A comprehensive compilation of links to resources for donors, recipients and health care professionals.

South Thames Tissue Typing http://www.umds.ac.uk/tissue/ A website with interesting articles on tissue typing and transplantation links.

Therapeutic Immunology Group http://www.molbiol.ox.ac.uk/www/pathology/tig/ This site offers an introduction to the mechanisms of tolerance and the therapeutic use of monoclonal antibodies in immunosuppression.

Cancer

Cancer is a disease that affects one in three people and there are many websites devoted to cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment and research.