April 2026

ORGAN TRANSPLANT

TRANSPLANT TOLERANCE: THE NEXT FRONTIER IN KIDNEY CARE

Featuring: Joseph R. Leventhal, MD, PhD
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​Joseph R. Leventhal, MD, PhD of the Comprehensive Transplant Center (CTC) at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine details how current approaches to preventing organ rejection after kidney transplantation rely heavily on long-term immunosuppressive drugs, but these treatments come with significant limitations. Transplant recipients must take multiple immunosuppressant medications for years, which can lead to side effects, high pill burden, and only limited durability of the transplanted organ. Even in the best cases - such as with a living donor - kidney transplants typically last around 20 years. For younger patients, this often means needing multiple transplants over their lifetime, highlighting a major gap in long-term care.
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To address these challenges, Northwestern Medicine is exploring new strategies focused on immune tolerance. Clinical trials are testing approaches like stem cell transplants, regulatory immune cell therapies, and modified donor cells to retrain the immune system. The goal is to reduce patients to minimal medication - or even eliminate it entirely - while maintaining healthy immune function. These advances could reduce long-term toxicity, improve transplant longevity, and potentially transform care into a more personalized, one-transplant-for-life model.

This video was originally published to NephrologyLive: Is Transplant Tolerance the Next Frontier in Kidney Care? With Joseph Leventhal, MD, PhD | HCPLive
Joseph R. Leventhal, MD, PhD, Fowler McCormick Professor of Surgery, Director of Kidney and Pancreas Transplant

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