UF gets grant for transplant research center

I normally do not post every article I see like this; however, because we have so many people in Florida with the pulmonary fibrosis of Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome, I thought I'd post this just to make everyone aware of the program etc. It was published on OCALA.com.



UF gets grant for transplant research center



Lung transplant patient and advocate Tom Telford (center) along with his wife Eileen Telford talk with John Ross, M.D., and others prior to the start of the Lung Transplant Reunion held in the Shands at UF Cancer Center's conference room. The Shands Lung Transplant center has recently received $1 million in funding from the state legislature to become a center of excellence.






By Diane Chun


Staff writer










Published: Friday, October 1, 2010 at 7:50 p.m.


Last Modified: Friday, October 1, 2010 at 11:34 p.m.


( page all of 2 )






GAINESVILLE — In the records of the transplant center at Shands Hospital at the University of Florida, Tim Telford is Patient No. 199.










Lung transplants at Shands UF• Performed first lung transplant in state in spring of 1994.


• As of Oct. 1, lung transplants totaled 493.


• One-year patient survival rate is 82 percent, among the best in the nation.






Telford, a semiretired nuclear engineer, was tethered to an oxygen tank in his South Florida home in 2002, his lungs rapidly deteriorating from pulmonary fibrosis.






That's when he was referred to the program at Shands UF and put on the waiting list for a lung transplant. Three months later, in December, a donor was found and Telford got a second chance at life.






He's made the most of it.






After a successful transplant, Telford, who is now a Gainesville resident, has made it his mission to find funding for research into chronic rejection, the most common reason patients die after a lung transplant.






In a ceremony Friday at the Shands Cancer Hospital, Telford joined other transplant recipients to hear the announcement that UF has received a $1 million grant to establish a lung transplant center and fund research projects aimed at solving post-transplant dilemmas such as chronic rejection.

To read the rest of the article, go here: http://www.ocala.com/article/20101001/ARTICLES/101009963/1001/news01?p=all&tc=pgall