Cancer cells come pre-programmed to execute a well-defined cascade of changes, seemingly designed to facilitate both their enhanced survival and their dissemination through the bloodstream. There is even an air of conspiracy in the way that tumours use chemical signals to create cancer-friendly niches in remote organs.
I started taking medication to weaken my immune system because that is what was attacking my kidneys. The problem was when I went on different medication, I suffered side effects. And the side effects caused 'moon face,' where my face swelled up. It was a reaction.
Post-operatively the transplanted kidney functioned immediately with a dramatic improvement in the patient's renal and cardiopulmonary status.
I had worked on dogs for a couple of years developing a renal transplant operation. We had dogs running around with kidneys we had transplanted back into themselves.
Don't forget my new kidney is a foreign object. My body attacks it. So I have to take these anti-rejection drugs to stop my body winning.
The risk from viruses is an unanswered question - and it won't be answered until you have had organs transplanted into humans over many years.
The slow rejection of the foreign skin grafts fascinated me. How could the host distinguish another person's skin from his own?
Chemotherapy isn't good for you.
The immune system's goal is to protect the body against invaders either from without, such as microbes, or from within, such as cancers and different types of neoplastic transformation.
I've already had two stem cell transplants. Very rarely does somebody have a third, so I have to maintain my strength so I can go through this.
You can put a kidney in your body - and somewhere down the line, your body might reject it.
When a patient does get an organ from another person, it comes from a different body. It has different properties, and a person's natural tendency is to reject that organ.
In 2003, the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and a year later, a national ethics committee in France, said that face transplantation would be going too far. The risk of complication would far outweigh the benefits.
Post-operatively the transplanted kidney functioned immediately with a dramatic improvement in the patient's renal and cardiopulmonary status. This spectacular success was a clear demonstration that organ transplantation could be life-saving.
