Stuart Knechtle, M.D.

Dr. Knechtle, a nationally-recognized surgeon and a leader in the field of liver and kidney transplantation, focuses on finding safer and more effective ways to prevent rejection of organ transplants.

The focus of Dr. Knechtle’s research is immunologic tolerance to organ transplants. Themes pursued in both non-human primates and humans are strategies and mechanisms of tolerance including both depleting agents and costimulation blockade. Another major focus has been immunologic monitoring of transplant patients to detect transplant rejection and overimmunosuppression.

Dr. Knechtle is best known for developing depleting strategies in transplant immunosupression that may promote tolerance to an organ transplant. His research focuses on finding safer and more effective ways to prevent rejection of organ transplants. He has also trained a number of leaders in transplantation. Dr. Knechtle had been the director of liver transplantation and transplant clinical trials at the University of Wisconsin, Madison since 2005. Dr. Knechtle plans to expand Emory’s liver transplant program by collaborating with colleagues in the departments of medicine, radiology, anesthesia and surgery.

Dr. Knechtle has been involved in a variety of clinical trials in organ transplantation and most recently helped develop a method to monitor kidney transplant patients by measuring chemokines in their urine rather than blood tests.

He performed the first living donor liver transplant in Wisconsin and the first combined liver/pancreas transplant there.

Alemtuzumab induction and triple maintenance immunotherapy in kidney transplantation from donors after cardiac death . Transpl Int; 21,625-636.

Calcineurin inhibitor withdrawal after renal transplantation with alemtuzumab: clinical outcomes and effect on T regulatory cells. Am J Transplant; 8,1529-1536.

Safety and pharmacokinetics of daclizumab in pediatric renal transplant recipients . Pediatr Transplant; 12,447-455.