New frontiers: the 2002 FASEB Summer Research Conference in Transplant Immunology

The first Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) summer research conference on transplantation immunology was organized by Angus Thomson (University of Pittsburgh), Robert Lechler (Imperial College London), Laurence Turka (University of Pennsylvania) and Megan Sykes (Massachusetts General Hospital). Over the past four decades, patient and graft survival rates for solid organ transplant recipients have improved dramatically; however, chronic rejection and the untoward effects of potent immunosuppressive drugs continue to loom. This symposium is a testament to the importance of bringing investigators from diverse biological backgrounds together in a single forum to discuss the fundamental issues of immune biology and advance the goal of transplant-specific tolerance.