Girl receives UK’s first rejection-free kidney from mum

An eight-year-old girl has become the first UK child to receive a special type of kidney transplant – one that doesn’t require taking long-term drugs to stop the rejection of the organ. 

Great Ormond Street Hospital doctors say the breakthrough was made possible by reprogramming her immune system before giving her the new kidney. 

To do that they used bone marrow stem cells from the donor – the girl’s mother. 

It means Aditi Shankar’s body accepts the new organ as her own. 

Within weeks of the transplant, Aditi was taken off immunosuppression, removing the risk of long-term side effects from these powerful drugs, which usually have to be taken daily to prevent organ rejection.

Aditi Shankar is now back at school with both her immune system and transplanted kidney working normally.