At the end of this year, Dr. Robert Truitt will retire from the Medical College of Wisconsin after 25 years as a pioneer in experimental bone marrow transplantation. In his work, he created a process of eradicating cancers of the blood.
Truitt spent his career studying graft-versus-host reactions (GVH).
“GVH reactions refer to an attack by cells from the bone marrow donor’s immune system against the recipient of the bone marrow transplant,” said Truitt.
This immune cell attack has the ability to kill leukemia and lymphoma cells. The transplanted cells accept or reject the body they ate put into. This attack described by Truitt is similar to the rejection of a kidney transplant, but in reverse.
“Essentially, the immune system of the donor recognizes the histocompatibility proteins of the recipient as foreign and attacks the recipient’s tissue and organs,” he said. “The grafted cells attack the host.”
This immune cell attack has a beneficial ability to kill leukemia and lymphoma cells. The beneficial effect was called graft-versus-leukemia (GVL) by Dr. Mortimer Bortin, Truitt’s mentor.
“Our research team, first at Mount Sinai Medical Center and later at the Medical College, identified the immune mechanisms that contributed to the anti-leukemia effect and developed ways to avoid the unwanted immune reactions against normal tissues of the patient, also known as the GVH reaction,” said Truitt.
At the Medical College in 1984, Truitt set up a team of scientists and clinicians to find ways to improve transplants. Truitt and Bortin continued to study the beneficial graft-versus-leukemia effect in human recipients of a BMT.
Truitt joined the Medical College as a professor of pediatrics and of microbiology and molecular genetics and in 1995 was appointed as associate director for research of the cancer center’s Experimental Bone Marrow Transplantation and Immunotherapy Research Program.
Truitt continued his career investigating the GVL effect and went on to make several findings including confirming the presence of “suppressor” T cells in bone marrow chimeras. His team also is credited for developing the first model to investigate the GVL effect of post-transplant donor lymphocyte infusions that stimulated the outcome seen in patients.
“In the complexities of managing bone marrow transplants the most challenging is that of patient management,” he said. (Patients) have a life threatening disease that will kill them and yet the treatment also has potential to kill them.”
With Truitt’s success he has changed the outcome for patients diagnosed with cancers of the blood.
“He is regarded in the highest possible fashion by his peers and is an important part of the team that has changed the face of pediatric cancer/hematology/bone marrow transplant care and treatment in Milwaukee and the world,” said John Cary, executive director of the MACC Fund, who nominated Truitt for a Health Care Hero Award.
