The article presented here as a Program lecture  of the Rector  of the First Saint-Petersburg State Medical  University n.a. acad. I.P. Pavlov highlights the key problems of modern organ transplantation, and explores the main challenges for medical professional education in this context.

Modeling of  immune tolerance will  eliminate the  need  for  taking medications to prevent rejection. This  review of available literature covers the immune mechanisms of allograft rejection and the ways of tolerance induction. The role of mesenchymal stem  cells and using them for tolerance development have been discussed. The authors also draw attention to the fact  that  blood transfusion from an organ donor  leads to a decreased  intensity of the immune response to donor cells in transplantation.

The  research  objective was  to study the  reparative effects of  the  collagen  type  I bio-construct loaded  with buccal epithelial cells, on the rabbit cornea after experimental keratectomy at various stages of treatment (on the 3rd, 7th, 14th, 3 0th days).

Material  and methods.  The  experiments were  conducted on 20 rabbits  of  the  Chinchilla breed that  were  operated on cornea of both eyes aiming to inflict epithelial and stromal cornea defects. The collagen-based bio-construct bearing buccal epithelial cells was placed  over the cornea of the experimental eyes. The  cornea of the control  eyes was covered with smooth contact lens. After the surgery, a temporal blepharorrhaphy was performed and kept for 3 days. We studied macroand microscopic pattern of corneal regeneration at 3, 7, 14, and 30 days of experiment.

Results. When  using the collaged-based bio-construct containing buccal epithelial cells, the complete epithelialization of the corneal defect occurred at mean 7 days earlier compared to that in the control eyes. Thus, the offered bio-construct stimulated the cell migration and proliferation at early stages of treatment (3–7 days) reducing the inflammation activity.

Conclusion. The bio-construct comprising a collagen type  I matrix loaded with buccal epithelial cells can provide an effective treatment option for corneal defects.

Introduction: the use of standardized questionnaires for  assessment of patients’ life  quality after organ transplantation has not been widely used in our country.

Purpose: The assessment of patients’ quality of life after the simultaneous pancreas & kidney transplantation using the SF-36 questionnaire.

Material and methods: 35 patients with type I diabetes mellitus (DM1) complicated by end-stage chronic renal failure were investigated. There were 16 women (45.7%) and 19 men  (54.3%). The median age was 36 [33; 45] years. The patients were divided into 2 groups depending on the transplantation type:  group I included the patients who underwent isolated kidney transplantation, group  II  included those  after combined kidney and  pancreas transplantation. Patients’ life quality was estimated using the SF-36 questionnaire.

Results: Patients in group II had significantly better physical functions, general health  status, and vital activity.

Conclusion: Simultaneous pancreas & kidney transplantation considerably improves the life quality of patients with DM1.

The  article  (the third one of five) presents the analysis of the final part  of the third chapter on homoplastic organ transplantation from V.P.  Demikhov's monograph "Transplantation of  vital  organs  in  experiment"  (MedGIz Publ., Moscow,  1960). The article covers the data presented by V.P. Demikhov on his creating the following animal models:  of the isolated  heart  and lung,  kidneys, head, half of the trunk, and the whole  trunk. The isolated  heart  models where  the heart  was positioned in place of the biological one were not successful. The longest  period  of the dog-recipient survival was  15 hours. The  dogs with transplanted lobes of  the  lung  survived up  to 6 days  (there  are no evidence of  a whole lung  transplant in the book); animal-recipients of kidneys survived up to 19 days.  V.P. Demikhov considered that  the graft deaths might be caused  by the biological  tissue  incompatibility between  the donor  and  recipient, and  he stressed the  need  for  its suppression and  the  importance of  choosing the  donor  and  recipient compatible by their  blood group for  successful homoplastic transplantation. By  transplanting the puppies' heads  onto  the cervical  vessels  of  the dogs, starting the experiments from 1954, V.P. Demikhov attempted to prove the role of the central nervous system in the organ engraftment, which was one of the targets  in those experiments. The integration of two bodies, combining their vascular systems, and mixing the blood had two goals: to create the conditions for overcoming the transplantation immunity and to make an animal model  of organ transplant in combination with retaining the organ neurohumoral links. The model of the cross circulation also allowed the formulation and implementation of the organ bank concept in the experiment.