“It is not uncommon to end up doing a kidney transplant in patients who previously had a lung or liver or heart transplant,” Dr. Humar added. The mice accepted the grafts as if they were their own skin, suggesting that the immune system can be modified. Image Dr. Peter Medawar, around 1960, when he won the Nobel Prize for studies of the immune system. The immune system is already developed in adults, while in baby mice it is still “learning” what is foreign and what is not. “You are trying to fool the body’s immune system,” Dr. Humar said.

Source: New York Times January 22, 2019 07:30 UTC