John Killian, M.D., Ph.D., volunteer clinical assistant professor in the UAB Division of Transplantation, is the first author of a kidney transplant study that has been named the latest Featured Discovery by the
The Featured Discovery award celebrates high-impact research by School of Medicine faculty and highlights UAB's leadership in team science. Selections are made by the Heersink research steering committee and recognize work published in a prominent scientific journal.
The study, "Topography of the HLA-A protein enforces shared and convergent immunodominant B cell and antibody alloresponses in transplant recipients," was published in Immunity. It examines antibody-mediated rejection, a leading cause of kidney transplant failure, and points toward ways to improve matching between donors and recipients.
The publication is the result of a collaboration among the UAB Departments of Surgery, Microbiology, Pathology, Informatics, and Medicine. It builds on an $18.5 million NIH U19 grant studying immune responses in organ transplant, led by the study's senior author and award recipient, Frances Lund, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Microbiology and director of the UAB Immunology Institute.
“We set out to find which donor-recipient mismatches are most significant to the immune system, and the answer turned out to be more universal than we expected," Killian said. "Being named in a Featured Discovery is a real honor, and it motivates us to keep turning these findings into better, safer outcomes for transplant patients."
“The transplantation field has always moved forward through partnerships – across disciplines, across labs, and across generations of researchers, and this study is a clear example of that," said Jacqueline Garonzik Wang, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Division of Transplantation and co-director of the Comprehensive Transplant Institute. "Having Dr. Killian’s work named in a Featured Discovery is a tremendous honor, and it reflects both his dedication and the collaborative culture that makes discoveries like this possible at UAB.”
Killian earned his medical degree at the UAB Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine and trained in the UAB General Surgery Residency Program, where he completed a doctoral dissertation on the immunology of transplant rejection during his academic development time. He is currently an abdominal transplant surgery fellow at Emory University and remains an active collaborator with the UAB Division of Transplantation.