Renal Ex Vivo SYN002 Perfusion to Eliminate CMV Transmission

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is the most common viral infection in transplant recipients and has major impacts on patient outcomes. It can cause fever, pneumonia, gastrointestinal disease, and lead to rejection of the kidney. To prevent this, transplant recipients receive prolonged antiviral drugs. This leads to significant drug toxicity and cost, and is often not successful. The risk of CMV is much higher if the donor organ carries latent CMV inside it (approximately 50-70% of donor organs). A much better and safer strategy would therefore be to try to eliminate the latent virus from the donor organ prior to transplantation. Ex Vivo Organ Perfusion (EVOP) is a common method of donor organ preservation and treatment which allows donor organs to be treated for several hours under close to physiological conditions. The investigators propose a study in which kidneys will be treated prior to transplantation on the EVOP platform in order to decrease latent CMV. SYN002 is a novel compound that binds to cells that are latently infected with CMV and is internalized and kills those specific cells. This pilot study will involve 12 kidney transplant patients, who are receiving a kidney known to have latent CMV. The kidney will be treated with SYN002 on the EVOP system prior to transplantation.