Why do organ recipients need to be a match but have to take anti rejection meds for the rest of their lives?

Question

Why do organ recipients need to be a match but have to take anti rejection meds for the rest of their lives?

In: 911

Answer 1

The human genome is *huge*, like blue whale’s heart huge.

10 years ago we knew 5 genes we needed to look at to detemine if a donor is a solid match for the recipient.

We currently know maybe 12 gene’s we need to look at to determine if an donor is a solid match for the recipient.

Even if all 12 of these known genes are a perfect match, the recipient has a better healthy life with those anti-rejection medications than they would without them.

So we keep giving them.