The ONE Study is the acronym for a large scale collaborative project, entitled: "A Unified Approach to Evaluating Cellular Immunotherapy in Solid Organ Transplantation", which is funded by the European Community's FP7. The project aims to improve treatments and the overall quality of life for kidney transplant patients through cell therapy. More specifically, the goal of the project is to develop and test an array of novel manufactured cell therapy products that have promise to reduce a kidney transplant patient's life-long dependency on immunosuppressive drugs. The ONE Study consortium explores the feasibility and potential of cell therapy in organ transplantation by bringing together experts to test different regulatory cell products composed of specific T cell (T regulatory cell, Treg and T regulatory type 1 cell, Tr1 cell), dendritic cell and macrophage subpopulations.
Besides the development and testing of regulatory cell populations in organ transplantation, a secondary aim of The ONE Study consortium is to comparatively study the regulatory mechanisms of different cell populations through workshops. Towards this aim, a ONE Study workshop on monocyte-derived suppressor cells was recently held in Regensburg, Germany. In preparing to assess the results of this workshop, the involved investigators deemed it useful to review the present literature on tolerogenic DCs and macrophage/myeloid derived suppressor cell populations. The authors of this review series consider the similarities and differences of these closely related cell populations, and suggest how they may best be applied as cell therapies meant to reduce organ transplant rejection. Indeed, cell therapy is entering a critical early phase of testing in transplantation, mandating that we take the necessary steps to determine which cell populations are most adaptable and effective for this purpose.
This review series in Transplantation Research offers a view into the future of cell therapy involving suppressive cells derived from readily available circulating monocytes. A more detailed introduction to the series can be found in the associated Editorial.
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union, Seventh Framework Programme [FP7/2007-2013], under grant agreement n° HEALTH-F5-2010-260687 The ONE Study.