Organ and tissue transplantation

Abstract

A report is delivered on the First International Congress of the Transplantation Society (Paris 1967). The recent interest in transplantation of organs is largely due to the technical advances in surgical procedures making it possible to replace organs in the human, as well as to an increased understanding of the basic biological problems underlying the rejection of such grafts. At this first International Congress, widely ranging topics were discussed, including organ transplantation, mechanism of graft rejection, methods of immunosuppression, genetics of transplantation, bone marrow transplantation, and cancer as homograft. New techniques of organ transplantation, new concepts in the antigenic structure of cells, new methods of purifying subcellular fraction of antilymphocytic serum, new drugs to combat rejection phenomena, and above all a fresh outlook on the mode of action of these drugs at a molecular level, will doubtless render this an exciting new approach to biology in general and to clinical problems in particular.