The University of Nebraska Board of Regents today approved the creation of the Center for Transplantation Medicine at University of Nebraska Medical Center.
The center will allow UNMC to build on its reputation as a national leader in the world of transplantation by increasing the medical center’s transplant research and education capabilities.
“The transplant center is a unique opportunity to get all the different professionals who work in transplantation together into one academic vessel,” said Alan Langnas, D.O., a professor of surgery at UNMC who would head the new center. “This will facilitate interactions that are symbiotic in nature and that will allow us to continue the types of things we are doing now while also working toward new advances in the field.”
The new center will draw on expertise from several departments across the campus to promote the development of innovative clinical therapeutics and translational research leading to enhanced diagnosis, treatment and outcomes for transplant patients.
It also will help facilitate the cross-disciplinary interaction that is needed for clinical and translational research, Dr. Langnas said. Increased research funding for transplant medicine will be a natural consequence of the center’s formation, he said.
The center would focus primarily on:
· Innovative approaches to treating patients with organ failure including cellular and organ replacement therapies;
· The molecular genomics for transplant immunology phenomena including allograft rejection, graft versus host disease and post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorders; and
· Population based-outcomes studies utilizing UNMC’s clinical data base.
UNMC’s large repository of transplant-related tissues and other materials will promote and facilitate clinical and basic research.
UNMC is the only public health science center in the state. Its educational programs are responsible for training more health professionals practicing in Nebraska than any other institution. Through their commitment to education, research, patient care and outreach, UNMC and its hospital partner, The Nebraska Medical Center, have established themselves as one of the country’s leading centers in cancer, transplantation biology, bioterrorism preparedness, neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular diseases, genetics, biomedical technology and ophthalmology. UNMC’s research funding from external sources now exceeds $82 million annually and has resulted in the creation of more than 2,400 highly skilled jobs in the state. UNMC’s physician practice group, UNMC Physicians, includes 513 physicians in 50 specialties and subspecialties who practice primarily in The Nebraska Medical Center. For more information, go to UNMC’s Web site at www.unmc.edu.
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