Tackling both Achilles tendons in liver transplantation: preventing early allograft dysfunction and non-anastomotic stictures in clinical and experimental studies. (FKM/15)

The project consists in tackling these two issues and this by continuing research lines that have been developping and pioneering in Belgium and on the international scene over more than a decade: i) multifactorial pharmacological modulation of ischemia reperfusion injury, the mechanism underpinning early allograft dysfunction in the recipient; and ii) substitution of simple cold storage (the classical “ice box”) by warm and oxygenated perfusion (e.g. virtually keeping the liver “alive” in the period between procurement and transplantation). Combining warm machine perfusion also allows biological modulation and cell therapy to be delivered ex situ directly during liver preservation and will also be investigated