Mismatched bone marrow transplants now save the lives of thousands of patients with leukemia and other blood malignancies, but these transplants can be risky. The patients’ immune systems need to be strongly suppressed in preparation for the transplant, leaving them vulnerable to infection immediately afterwards.

In a new study reported recently in Blood Advances, Prof. Yair Reisner and his team at the Murray Koffler Weizmann Institute of Science, together with Prof. Franco Aversa and other physicians at the University of Parma, developed a method for dramatically reducing the need for immune suppression before and after the mismatched transplant. This method may lead not only to safer bone marrow transplants – it could also facilitate organ