Makiko Kumagai-Braesch

MD, Ph.D.
Senior researcher, laboratory manager at the Transplantation Lab, Transplantation Surgery, CLINTEC, Karolinska Institutet

Makiko Kumagai started working as a general surgeon in Japan, then engaged in research for transplantation immunology. She studied immunology in xenotransplantation at Karolinska Institutet and also at Pathology Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard, Boston, USA.
She defended her thesis on the subject of immunological characterization of pig to human xenotransplantation Karolinska Institutet, Clinical Immunology (1998).

For the last 15 years, she has worked as a senior researcher in the research laboratory of the Division of Transplantation Surgery.

The focus of the research was (1) the improvement of efficacy of pancreatic islet transplantation (P.I. Annika Tibell and Torbjörn 
Lundgren). (2) cell therapy for tolerance induction in organ transplantation (P.I. Bo-Göran Ericzon).

MD (1986, Tohoku University, Sendai Japan)
PhD (1998, Karolinska Institutet, Clinical Immunology, Sweden)

1) Experimental pancreatic islet transplantation; Focus on various strategies to improve efficacy of pancreatic islet transplantation using
rodent models.
2) Cell therapy for tolerance induction in organ-transplantation; Development of culture methods of donor specific immunomodulatory cells
and Immunological characterization of the generated cells in vitro.

Supervise postdoc fellows, PhD students, medical students, and master course students. 

Lectures for Transplantation Immunology in a transplantation course for medical students,