Mark Lockwood: Understanding post-transplant symptoms
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Kidney transplant recipients take medications for their entire lives to prevent the body from rejecting the transplanted organ. Assistant professor Mark Lockwood, PhD, RN, hypothesized that these drugs might also alter the composition of beneficial microbes in the patient’s mouth and guts.
To test this hypothesis accurately, Lockwood needed to make sure patients in his study were taking their medication. Thanks to the Janet A. Deatrick Award, he was able to purchase a sophisticated electronic cap that records the date and time the patient opens the medicine bottle.
Lockwood’s work is important because certain species of bacteria may be associated with post-transplant symptoms, such as fatigue or sleep disturbances, and could be corrected through dietary changes or supplementation with probiotics.
Janet Deatrick, PhD ’82, RN, FAAN, is professor emerita at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. She established her award in 2011 to support faculty early in their research careers.