Research

The Hume-Lee Transplant Center has a long history of fostering important research within the transplant community. Our facility was the first in the world to successfully treat a patient using cryopreserved hepatocyte cells for human cell transplant therapy in 1993.

The researchers at Hume-Lee have actively participated in numerous national and international multicenter collaborative studies as well as successfully introduced their own researcher-initiated studies. Our center has an established track record in securing funding from both industry and government sponsors.

The focus of our research initiatives are patient-centered with emphasis in the areas of liver transplantation and disease, kidney transplantation and disease, pancreas transplantation and disease, cell transplant and animal model studies.

Our Research Facilities

Our labs have provided training/education for undergraduate students (on summer fellowships), surgical residents and postdoctoral fellows in microsurgical techniques and immunobiology for more than 20 years.  

The Hume-Lee Cell Transplant Facility, located within the Virginia BioTechnology Center on the MCV Campus, is cGMP-certified and IRB- and FDA-approved for treatments utilizing human liver or islet cells. Lab manager: Yoshiko Tamura.

The Transplant Surgery Research Laboratory, located in Sanger Hall at the VCU Medical Center, explores those aspects of physiology and immunobiology as they relate to the transplantation of both cells and solid organs. Studies here utilize small animal models such as rats and mice. Lab manager: John Beeston, R.N.