The Plastic Surgery Foundation
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Grants We Funded

Grant applicants for the 2024 cycle requested a total of nearly $3 million dollars. The PSF Study Section Subcommittees of Basic & Translational Research and Clinical Research evaluated more than 100 grant applications on the following topics:

The PSF awarded research grants totaling over $650,000 dollars to support more than 20 plastic surgery research proposals.

ASPS/PSF leadership is committed to continuing to provide high levels of investigator-initiated research support to ensure that plastic surgeons have the needed research resources to be pioneers and innovators in advancing the practice of medicine.

Research Abstracts

Search The PSF database to have easy access to full-text grant abstracts from past PSF-funded research projects 2003 to present. All abstracts are the work of the Principal Investigators and were retrieved from their PSF grant applications. Several different filters may be applied to locate abstracts specific to a particular focus area or PSF funding mechanism.

A New Protocol for Tolerance Induction to Composite Tissue Allotransplantation

Principal Investigator
Jignesh Unadkat MD

Year
2008

Institution
University of Pittsburgh

Funding Mechanism
Basic Research Grant

Focus Area
Technology Based

Abstract
Composite tissue allotransplantation (CT A) represents a novel surgical tool in the reconstructive surgeon's armamentarium. It provides a true replacement of "like for like" and does not involve any donor site morbidity. However, long term CTA survival requires chronic immunosuppression, which is associated with complications such as drug and metabolic toxicities, opportunistic infections and malignancies. To overcome the risk-benefit ratio of CTA as routine surgical reconstructive option, limiting chronic immunosuppression and preventing acute rejection is absolutely vital. The potential efficacy of bone marrow (BM) transplantation for tolerance induction is well established. Use of donor BM transplantation to induce tolerance to CTA represents an attractive option. However, its full potential has not yet been realized due to the need for recipient myeloablative preconditioning, risk of graft versus host disease (GVHD), which limits the amount of BM transplantable and risk of sensitization. Specific Aim: To use massive doses of donor BM to induce tolerance to CTA and assess the mechanism without causing any side effects. Hypothesis: The concomitant use of massive doses of donor BM in presence of co-stimulatory blockade without any recipient preconditioning along with short-ten11 rapamycin will induce robust tolerance to CTA without risks of GVHD, sensitization or chronic immunosuppression.