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• n  lowering the body's normal immune response to invasion by foreign substances; can be deliberate (as in lowering the immune response to prevent rejection of a transplanted organ) or incidental (as a side effect of radiotherapy or chemotherapy for cancer)

• At best, though, immunosuppression is a blunderbuss approach that also leaves the body unshielded against lethal germs and sometimes apparently cancer.
• Starzl stopped operating while he and his colleagues worked on a less hazardous method of immunosuppression, using antilymphocyte serum or globulin extracted from horses into which .
• Serum that inhibits the production and action of lymphocytes, the cells responsible for rejection, may cause severe reactions; immunosuppression, which is now the mainstay of .

News & Articles

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• Hand transplantation: New method for local immunosuppression successful
  Hope for hand amputees: researchers have successfully tested a new method for local immunosuppression.
  Aug. 21, 2013 - Science Daily
• JPIDS explores trends in perinatally infected HIV patients now approaching adulthood
  ( Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society ) The advent of antiretroviral therapy (ART) has transformed HIV from a death sentence into a chronic disease. In one of the largest studies of perinatally infected HIV patients to date, Agwu, et al, found that the proportion of patients on ART has increased and rates of viremia and advanced immunosuppression have decreased.
  Aug. 16, 2013 - EurekAlert!

Quotes

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• Glenn in EurekAlert (press release)
  It's autologous, we don't need to worry about rejection of tissue, and immunosuppression,says Glenn Winnier of Pharmafrontiers, a company in Woodland, Texas.
• Thomas Okarma in Reuters
  A reduction in the requirement for immunosuppression decreases the potential for untoward side effects that are common with those types of drugs,said Thomas Okarma, the company's chief executive officer, in a statement.