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== =Bio​graphy= Full Name: Lori Jeanne West Profession: Cardiovascular Researcher Education:
 * **Doctor of Medicine, 1983, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA, USA**
 * **Paediatric residency at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center**
 * **Two-year clinical fellowship in Paediatric Cardiology at the Hospital for Sick Children starting in 1987**
 * **Doctor of Philosophy, 1995, Balliol College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK**

Degrees: MD, DPhil, FRCPC

Groundbreaking Discovery
For many years, Infant Mortality Rates due to waiting on Heart Transplants were rampant. It just didn't feel fair that such lives had to be taken away. These were just some of the motivations that Dr. Lori Jeanne West, who was then working at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario, and many years after she had completed a two-year clinical fellowship in paediatric cardiology, needed. “We reasoned that because the infant immune system is immature and lacks the antibodies that cause hyperacute rejection, it would be safe to cross the blood group barrier” she said.

A study was eventually c​onducted in which 10 infants between the ages of 4 hours to 14 months (1 1/6 years old) had received transplant hearts from donors of the incompatible blood type, with 80% survival rate. Of the children that survived, only 2 died due to unrelated causes. The children who had received ABO-incompatable Hearts had shown no more the chance of rejection than an individual who received a Heart with the same Blood Type. With such a discovery, it seems as if the susceptability to tolerance induction in humans, at least to certain antigens, ultimately extends into the newborn period and not just in the Fetal Stage/Utero.

As was said above, An infant waiting for a Heart Transplant can receive a heart of any blood type whatsoever. This is due to the immune responses of the infant still having been undeveloped, having not fully completed development. Before such a discovery was made, so many unnecessary infant deaths as a result of waiting on a new heart had occurred at a rate of 58%, ultimately dropping to an astonishing 7% as of today. Although the fear of rejection will be with the recipient for life, the chances of getting a heart from any donor has never been greater.

**Post Sick Kids** Today, however, even though she is no longer working at the HSC in Toronto, she is still continuing her research as a part of the Transplant Immunology Research Program at the Alberta Diabetes Institute at the University of Alberta, specifically serving as the Adjunct Professor for Surgery and Immunology, Director of Heart Transplant Research and the obvious position as Professor of Pediatrics. Aside from that, she also has [|her own research group].

**Why she should become a member of the Canadian Science and Technology Museum** If you didn't look at everything just said above, then maybe you should, only then may you agree with me on why such a woman as her deseves to be in such a place of prestige. The amount of newborns and infants in total would be far greater as of now had she not found such a discovery as this, especially since the need for Donor Organs is high enough as it already is in today's world.

**Personal Life** Outside the lab, her hobbies include such things as Building Technology, Horseback Riding and Fishing.


 * Bibliography**

http://www.123people.ca/s/lori+west http://www.cardiactransplantresearch.med.ualberta.ca/include/WestLabOpeningJun08.pdf

http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/24585.html http://www.adi.med.ualberta.ca/Home/Research/PrincipalInvestigators/Bio/west.cfm

http://www.ahfmr.ab.ca/experts/search.php?researcherid=410 http://www.sickkids.ca/AboutSickKids/Newsroom/Past-News/2001/study-hope-infants-awaiting-heart-transplantation.html