Education

• PhD, Biology, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, 1979
• Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, National Cancer Institute, Mayo Clinic and Mayo Medical School, Rochester, MN, 1980-1983

Professional Activities

Dr. Burlingham serves on the editorial board of Transplantation. He is also the chairman of the University of Wisconsin Spring Immunology Seminar Series.

Research Interests

Dr. Burlingham has developed a highly respected transplant basic research program that focuses on acquired immunologic tolerance. His laboratory hopes to gain insight into graft acceptance by studying transplant recipients who have survived after stopping immunosuppressive drugs.

Specifically, his research focuses on the natural exchange of soluble antigens and low numbers of white blood cells that occurs between mother and child during pregnancy and nursing. The lab’s working hypothesis is that this exchange, which leads to persistence of bone marrow-derived maternal blood cells within the offspring (“microchimerism”) may induce a “natural” form of tolerance. This tolerance, if harnessed, may allow for drug-free acceptance of transplanted grafts.

Dr. Burlingham's Lab

Funding/Grants

• TH17 Autoimmunity to Type V Collagen in Heart and Lung Transplant
  Funding Agency: National Institutes of Health/Indiana University
  Principal Investigator(s): William J Burlingham, PhD
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Active Clinical Trials

• DSR-guided Tacrolimus Withdrawal to Myfortic Monotherapy in Liver Transplantation
  Principal Investigator(s): William J Burlingham, PhD
  Status: Recruiting
  [ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01230502]
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• Mycophenolic Acid Monotherapy in Recipients of HLA-identical Living-Related Transplantation
  Principal Investigator(s): William J Burlingham, PhD, Hans W. Sollinger, MD, PhD, FACS
  Status: Recruiting
  [ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01053221]
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Recent Publications

• Pretransplant immune regulation predicts allograft outcome: bidirectional regulation correlates with excellent renal transplant function in living-related donor-recipient pairs.
  Jankowska-Gan E, Sheka A, Sollinger HW, Pirsch JD, Hofmann RM, Haynes LD, Armbrust MJ, Mezrich JD, Burlingham WJ
  Transplantation 2012 Feb 15; 93(3):283-90.
  [PubMed ID: 22186938]
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• Microchimerism in cord blood: mother as anticancer drug.
  Burlingham WJ, Nelson JL
  Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2012 Feb 14; 109(7):2190-1.
  [PubMed ID: 22323582, PMC ID: 3289348]
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• Tolerance after solid organ and hematopoietic cell transplantation.
  Szabolcs P, Burlingham WJ, Thomson AW
  Biol. Blood Marrow Transplant. 2012 Jan; 18(1 Suppl):S193-200.
  [PubMed ID: 22226107]
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• Timing is everything in tolerance.
  Burlingham WJ
  Am. J. Transplant. 2012 Mar; 12(3):517-8.
  [PubMed ID: 22176723]
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• Donor-specific indirect pathway analysis reveals a B-cell-independent signature which reflects outcomes in kidney transplant recipients.
  Haynes LD, Jankowska-Gan E, Sheka A, Keller MR, Hernandez-Fuentes MP, Lechler RI, Seyfert-Margolis V, Turka LA, Newell KA, Burlingham WJ
  Am. J. Transplant. 2012 Mar; 12(3):640-8.
  [PubMed ID: 22151236]
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