Archive for the ‘Bone Marrow Stem Cells’ Category

Theres a good reason people over 60 are not donor candidates for bone marrow transplantation. The immune system ages and weakens with time, making the elderly prone to life-threatening infection and other maladies, and a UC San Francisco research team now has discovered a reason why.

Emmanuelle Passegu, PhD

We have found the cellular mechanism responsible for the inability of blood-forming cells to maintain blood production over time in an old organism, and have identified molecular defects that could be restored for rejuvenation therapies, said Emmanuelle Passegu, PhD, a professor of medicine and a member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF. Passegu, an expert on the stem cells that give rise to the blood and immune system, led a team that published the new findings online July 30, 2014 in the journal Nature.

Blood and immune cells are short-lived, and unlike most tissues, must be constantly replenished. The cells that must keep producing them throughout a lifetime are called hematopoietic stem cells. Through cycles of cell division these stem cells preserve their own numbers and generate the daughter cells that give rise to replacement blood and immune cells. But the hematopoietic stem cells falter with age, because they lose the ability to replicate their DNA accurately and efficiently during cell division, Passegus lab team determined.

Especially vulnerable to the breakdown, the researchers discovered in their new study of old mice, are transplanted, aging, blood-forming stem cells, which lack the ability to make B cells of the immune system. These B cells make antibodies to help us fight all sorts of microbial infections, including bacteria that cause pneumonia, a leading killer of the elderly.

In old blood-forming stem cells, the researchers found a scarcity of specific protein components needed to form a molecular machine called the mini-chromosome maintenance helicase, which unwinds double-stranded DNA so that the cells genetic material can be duplicated and allocated to daughter cells later in cell division. In their study the stem cells were stressed by the loss of activity of this machine and as a result were at heightened risk for DNA damage and death when forced to divide.

The researchers discovered that even after the stress associated with DNA replication, surviving, non-dividing, resting, old stem cells retained molecular tags on DNA-wrapping histone proteins, a feature often associated with DNA damage. However, the researchers determined that these old survivors could repair induced DNA damage as efficiently as young stem cells.

"Old stem cells are not just sitting there with damaged DNA ready to develop cancer, as it has long been postulated" Passegu said.

Go here to see the original:
Key to Aging Immune System Is Discovered

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

28-Jul-2014

Contact: Meng Zhao eic@nrren.org 86-138-049-98773 Neural Regeneration Research

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play an important regulatory role in the self-renewal and differentiation of stem cells. Dr. Defeng Zou and co-workers from the First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, China focuses on the effect of miRNA overexpression on the differentiation of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells into neurons. In the study released on the Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 9, No. 12, 2014), researchers used GeneChip technology to analyze the expression of miRNAs in bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells, neural stem cells and neurons. They constructed a lentiviral vector overexpressing miR-124 and transfected it into bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells. Intracellular expression levels of the neuronal early markers -III tubulin and microtubule-associated protein-2 were significantly increased, and apoptosis was reduced in transfected cells. After miR-124-transfected bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells were transplanted into the injured rat spinal cord, a large number of cells positive for the neuronal marker neurofilament-200 were observed in the transplanted region. The Basso-Beattie-Bresnahan locomotion scores showed that the motor function of the hind limb of rats with spinal cord injury was substantially improved. These results suggest that miR-124 plays an important role in the differentiation of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells into neurons, providing novel strategies for enhancing the therapeutic efficacy of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cell transplantation for spinal cord injury.

###

Article: "Overexpression of microRNA-124 promotes the neuronal differentiation of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells" by Defeng Zou1, Yi Chen2, Yaxin Han1, Chen Lv1, Guanjun Tu1 (1 Department of Orthopedics, First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China; 2 Department of Orthopedics, Jinhua Central Hospital of Zhejiang University, Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, China)

Zou DF, Chen Y, Han YX, Lv C, Tu GJ. Overexpression of microRNA-124 promotes the neuronal differentiation of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells. Neural Regen Res. 2014;9(12):1241-1248.

Contact: Meng Zhao eic@nrren.org 86-138-049-98773 Neural Regeneration Research http://www.nrronline.org/

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Excerpt from:
How does microRNA-124 promote the neuronal differentiation of BMSCs?

When Karen Mitchell read the popular blog written by teenage terminal cancer sufferer Alice Pyne, not only was she deeply moved but also inspired.

Pride Of Britain winner Alice, who had Hodgkins lymphoma from the age of 12, took to social media to urge people to join the bone marrow register. Karen decided she too would sign up to donate her stem cells and save lives.

But there was one thing holding her back her weight.

She was 25st and had a BMI of 60, well above the healthy range of 18-25, and when she began the online registration for Anthony Nolan with her weight and height 5ft 6in she was rejected as being too fat.

So, instead she sent brave Alice a tweet, promising she would lose weight to join the register. And when Alice replied, urging her not to give up, Karen swore that she would not fail.

Now shes lost an incredible 11st 7lb and next week she will make a life-saving donation in memory of Alice, who died in January 2013.

Alice told me not to give up and I didnt want to let her down, says Karen. Her amazing legacy can go on saving lives and I hope everyone reading this will donate as well not for me but for Alice.

Karen, from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, had battled with her weight for as long as she could remember. Her teenage years were a misery as she was forced to dress in size 18 clothes. Even turning vegetarian and making her staple food cheese at 15 didnt help solve her weight problem.

I longed to wear trendy clothes like the other girls at my school but I could only shop in the fat section of shops, she says.

Karen married when she was 27 but says she knew when she walked down the aisle in her size 28 wedding dress that the marriage was already doomed.

More here:
'I promised brave cancer teenager Alice I'd lose 11st so I could donate bone marrow'

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, July 23, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Most blood cancer patients in the United States who need a bone marrow transplant can find an acceptable match through the National Marrow Donor Program, a new study has determined.

Depending on a patient's race or ethnic background, the study found that 66 percent to 97 percent of patients will have a suitably matched and available live donor on the registry.

Even hard-to-match ethnic groups can find a suitable donation thanks to banked stem cells drawn from umbilical cord-blood donations, said senior author Martin Maiers, director of bioinformatics research at the National Marrow Donor Program.

All told, for patients who are candidates for either bone marrow or cord-blood transplants, the likelihood of having a suitable match is as high as 91 to 99 percent, the study found.

"For almost all patients, there is some sort of product available for them," Maiers said.

The findings, said to represent the first attempt to accurately determine the successful-match rate of the bone marrow registry, are published July 24 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Patients suffering from blood-related cancers such as leukemia or lymphoma need a stem cell transplant to help them survive their cancer treatment. The transplant is done after chemotherapy and radiation is complete.

Donation from a relative is the best option, but only about 30 percent of patients have such a donor available, researchers said in background notes. The majority must rely on the National Marrow Donor Program to match them with a live bone marrow donor or banked stem cells gathered from donated umbilical cord blood.

The National Marrow Donor Program has on hand 11 million potential bone marrow donors and 193,000 banked cord-blood donations. The number of transplants facilitated by the program has quadrupled, with nearly 6,000 transplants in 2012 compared with 1,500 a decade earlier.

Follow this link:
Good Odds for Those Who Need Bone Marrow Donor, Study Finds

The immune system has evolved to recognize and respond to threats to health, and to provide life-long memory that prevents recurrent disease. A detailed understanding of the mechanism underlying immunologic memory, however, has remained elusive. Since 2001, various lines of research have converged to support the hypothesis that the persistence of immune memory arises from a reservoir of immune cells with stem-cell-like potential. Until now, there was no conclusive evidence, largely because experiments could only be carried out on populations of cells. This first strict test of the stem cell hypothesis of immune memory was based on mapping the fates of individual T cells and their descendants over several generations.

That experimental capability was developed through a long-term collaboration, focused on clinical cell processing and purification, between researchers based in Munich and Seattle. Since 2009, the groups of Prof. Dirk Busch at the Technische Universitt Mnchen (TUM) and Prof. Stanley Riddell at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have combined their technological and clinical expertise under the auspices of the TUM Institute for Advanced Study. The University of Heidelberg, the University of Dsseldorf, the Helmholtz Center Munich, the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), and the National Center for Infection Research (DZIF) also contributed to the present study.

Homing in on the "stemness" of T cells

After generating an immune response in laboratory animals, TUM researchers Patricia Graef and Veit Buchholz separated complex "killer" T cell populations enlisted to fight the immediate or recurring infection. Within these cell populations, they then identified subgroups and proceeded with a series of single-cell adoptive transfer experiments, in which the aftermath of immune responses could be analyzed in detail. Here the ability to identify and characterize the descendants of individual T cells through several generations was crucial.

The researchers first established that a high potential for expansion and differentiation in a defined subpopulation, called "central memory T cells," does not depend exclusively on any special source such as bone marrow, lymph nodes, or spleen. This supported but did not yet prove the idea that certain central memory T cells are, effectively, adult stem cells. Further experiments, using and comparing both memory T cells and so-called naive T cells -- that is, mature immune cells that have not yet encountered their antigen -- enabled the scientists to home in on stem-cell-like characteristics and eliminate other possible explanations.

Step by step, the results strengthened the case that the persistence of immune memory depends on the "stemness" of the subpopulation of T cells termed central memory T cells: Individual central memory T cells proved to be "multipotent," meaning that they can generate diverse types of offspring to fight an infection and to remember the antagonist. Further, these individual T cells self-renew into secondary memory T cells that are, again, multipotent at the single-cell level. And finally, individual descendants of secondary memory T cells are capable of fully restoring the capacity for a normal immune response.

Insights with clinical potential

One implication is that future immune-based therapies for cancers and other diseases might get effective results from adoptive transfer of small numbers of individual T cells. "In principle, one individual T cell can be enough to transfer effective and long-lasting protective immunity for a defined pathogen or tumor antigen to a patient," says Prof. Dirk Busch, director of the Institute for Medicial Microbiology, Immunology and Hygiene at TUM. "Isn't that astonishing?"

"These results are extremely exciting and come at a time when immunotherapy is moving into the mainstream as a treatment for cancer and other diseases," says Prof. Stanley Riddell of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington. "The results provide strong experimental support for the concept that the efficacy and durability of T cell immunotherapy for infections and cancer may be improved by utilizing specific T cell subsets."

Story Source:

View original post here:
Experiments prove 'stemness' of individual immune memory cells

WATCH:An 11-year-old girl with a rare blood disease is in need of a stem cell transplant ideally from a match within the South Asian Community. Angie Seth reports.

Stem cell and bone marrow donations are critical for hundreds of people in Canada suffering from certain types of cancers or blood diseases.

Right now there are approximately 800 people on the transplant list. Among them is 11-year-old Cierra Singh.

Cierra has a rare blood disease calledMyelodysplastic Syndrome.

Mybone marrow and my bones are not producing enough healthy cells. So there are platelets and the white blood cells and the red blood cells. My mom tells me they are not working as well as they should work, Cierra tells Global News.

We had the opportunity to meet this incredible little girl who strives to give back to others in every which way.

Everyone says its a big deal, but I dont see it as a big deal. I just try to stay positive all the time, she says.

Cierra was diagnosed with the rare blood disease in April. A trip to Sick Kids hospital because of a swollen leg led doctors to discover Cierras immune system was not functioning properly.

Her Mothers fears paint a bleak picture.

If she were to get a fever of 38.5 and up we need to rush her into emergency within the hour . The risk of infectious diseases is very high so they need to pump her body with antibiotics because she wont be able to fight it. The only cure for Myelodysplastic Syndrome is a stem cell transplant, there is no other option, KiranBenet, Cierras Mom says.

See the original post:
11-year-olds critical need for a stem cell transplant

Patients' virus levels became undetectable after a bone-marrow therapy with stem cells

Scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of a lymphocyte with HIV cluster. Credit: National Cancer Institute via Wikimedia Commons

Scientists have uncovered two new cases of HIV patients in whom the virus has become undetectable.

The two patients, both Australian men, became apparently HIV-free after receiving stem cells to treat cancer. They are still on antiretroviral therapy (ART) as a precaution, but those drugs alone could not be responsible for bringing the virus to such low levels, says David Cooper, director of the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who led the discovery. A year ago, a different group of researchers had reported cases with a similar outcome.

Cooper presented details of the cases today at a press briefing in Melbourne, Australia, where delegates are convening for next week's 20th International AIDS Conference. The announcement came just a day after the news that at least six people heading to the conference died when aMalaysia Airlines flight was shot down in Ukraine.

Cooper began searching for patients who had been purged of the HIV virus after attending a presentation by a US team last year at a conference of the International AIDS Society in Kuala Lumpur. At that meeting, researchers from Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, reported that two patients who had received stem-cell transplants were virus-free.

Cooper and his collaborators scanned the archives of St Vincents hospital in Sydney, one of the largest bone-marrow centres in Australia. We went back and looked whether we had transplanted [on] any HIV-positive patients, and found these two, says Cooper.

The first patient had received a bone-marrow transplant for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2011. His replacement stem cells came from a donor who carried one copy of a gene thought to afford protection against the virus. The other had been treated for leukaemia in 2012.

Unfortunately, several months after the 'Boston' patients stopped taking ART,the virus returned. An infant born with HIV in Mississippi who received antiretroviral therapy soon after birth, then stopped it for more than three years,was thought to have been cured, buthas had the virus rebound, too.

Natural resistance At the moment, there is only one person in the world who is still considered cured of HIV:Timothy Ray Brown, the 'Berlin patient', who received a bone-marrow transplant and has had no signs of the virus in his blood for six years without ART. The bone marrow received by the Berlin patient came from a donor who happened to have a natural genetic resistance to his strain of HIV.

See original here:
HIV Cleared in 2 Patients via Cancer Treatment

Surgeons have pioneered a new knee operation that could prevent the development of arthritis and extend sporting careers.

The procedure, which is currently being trialled at Southampton General Hospital, involves coating damaged cartilage with stem cells, taken from a patient's own hip, and surgical glue.

Known as Abicus (Autologous Bone Marrow Implantation of Cells University Hospital Southampton), the technique, if successful, will regenerate the remaining tissue and create a permanent "like-for-like" replacement for the first time.

Cartilage is a tough, flexible tissue that covers the surface of joints and enables bones to slide over one another while reducing friction and acting as a shock absorber.

Damage to the tissue in the knee is common and occurs mainly following sudden twists or direct blows, such as falls or heavy tackles playing sports such as football and rugby, but can also develop over time through gradual wear and tear.

Around 10,000 people a year in the UK suffer cartilage damage serious enough to require treatment due to pain, "locking" and reduced flexibility. If left untreated, it can progress to arthritis and severely impair leg movement.

Currently, the most commonly used procedure to repair the injury - microfracture - involves trimming any remaining damaged tissue and drilling holes in the bone beneath the defect via keyhole surgery to promote bleeding and scar tissue to work as a substitute.

However, the technique has variable results, with studies in the US suggesting the procedure offers only a short term benefit (the first 24 months after surgery), and does not lead to the formation of new cartilage.

Patients who undergo the Abicus operation have the cartilage cut and tidied and undergo microfracture, but their cartilage tissue is then coated with a substance made up of bone marrow cells, platelet gel and hyaluronic acid.

During the 30-minute procedure, the bone marrow sample is spun in a centrifuge in the operating theatre to give a concentrated amount of the patient's own stem cells.

Original post:
High hopes for new knee operation

Scientists have discovered a new way to make human platelets, which could help patients worldwide who need blood transfusions.

Platelets are the cells we use to form blood clots. They're traditionally created in our bone marrow. But scientists are now using a machine called a platelet bioreactoralong with human stem cells to create platelets outside the human body.(ViaYouTube / ThrombosisAdviser,American Society of Hematology)

Essentially, this"next-generation"device asBoston Magazinecalls it features the same characteristics asbone marrow. The crucial difference: It's able to carry out a reaction on an industrial scale.

An author of the study said in a press release published byHealthDay,"The ability to generate an alternative source of functional human platelets with virtually no disease transmission represents a paradigm shift in how we collect platelets that may allow us to meet the growing need for blood transfusions."

Brigham and Women's Hospital reports more than 2 million donor platelet units are transfused each year in the U.S. to help patients in need.

That includestrauma patients and those undergoing chemotherapy, organ transplants and surgery. (Getty Images)

But platelet shortages are common due to increased demand, a short shelflife and the possibility of contamination, rejection and infection. (Getty Images)

The problem lab-created platelets have runinto in the past istime: Growing new platelets took too long.

A doctor not associated with this researchsaid,"This study addresses that gap, while contributing to our understanding of platelet biology at the same time."(ViaHealthDay /Brigham and Women's Hospital)

Butthe rules are tough on blood products, so the platelets will undergo safety tests over the next three years. Clinical human trials likely won't start until 2017. (Getty Images)

View original post here:
Scientists find new way to make human platelets

The First Minister has given his support to the Teles campaign for bone marrow donors.

Alex Salmond urged people to consider joining the national bone marrow registers after he heard about Menzieshill baby Faith Cushnies cancer battle.

Mr Salmond said: Faiths story highlights the need for more bone marrow donors, and I commend the Evening Telegraph for their excellent campaign.

It is vital that those willing to donate their blood stem cells or bone marrow sign up to the Anthony Nolan Trust and British Bone Marrow Registers, to help people who desperately need lifesaving transplants.

I would encourage everyone eligible to consider saving lives by joining the register.

More than 180 people from Tayside have registered to be donors with the bone marrow and stem cell charity Anthony Nolan since the Tele published Faiths story on Tuesday.

The nine-month-old, needed a bone marrow donation to beat leukaemia, but after her donor backed out she relapsed before a replacement could be found.

Doctors have told Faiths devastated parents there is now nothing they can do for her.

Every year around 1,800 people in the UK need a bone marrow or stem cell transplant to treat cancers such as leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma and blood disorders like sickle cell disease.

Bone marrow, the spongy tissue found inside some bones, contains stem cells that produce blood cells to carry oxygen around the body, fight infection and stop bleeding.

View original post here:
Alex Salmond says Yes to the Teles bone marrow campaign

Melbourne: In a discovery that raises hope for a cure for AIDS, two Australian men have been found to be HIV-free after receiving stem cells to treat cancer. The two patients' virus levels became undetectable after bone-marrow therapy with stem cells.

They are still on antiretroviral therapy (ART) "as a precaution", but those drugs alone could not be responsible for bringing the virus to such low levels, said David Cooper, director of the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who led the discovery.

Cooper began searching for patients who had been purged of the HIV virus after attending a presentation by a United States team last year at a conference of the International AIDS Society in Kuala Lumpur.

At that meeting, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, reported that two patients who had received stem-cell transplants were virus-free.

Cooper and his collaborators scanned the archives of St Vincent's hospital in Sydney, one of the largest bone-marrow centres in Australia.

"We went back and looked whether we had transplanted [on] any HIV-positive patients, and found these two," said Cooper. The first patient had received a bone-marrow transplant for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2011.

His replacement stem cells came from a donor who carried one copy of a gene thought to afford protection against the virus. The other had been treated for leukaemia in 2012.

Because of the risk of relapse, Cooper's team will not claim that their patients are cured, 'nature.com' reported. However, Cooper said the results show that "there is something about bone-marrow transplantation in people with HIV that has an anti-HIV reservoir effect, such that the reservoirs go down to very low levels. And if we can understand what that is and how that happens, it will really accelerate the field of cure search."

Stem-cell transplant in itself cannot be used as a routine HIV treatment, because of the high mortality (10 per cent) associated with the procedure, researchers said.

Earlier this month, the search for AIDS cure suffered a major setback when a child in the US, who was thought to have been cured of HIV after intensive drug therapy, was found with detectable levels of the virus.

Read more here:
Cancer Treatment Clears Two Australian Men of HIV

Leukemia patient Mai Duong is in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant -- something doctors say the Montreal resident requires within a matter of weeks.

While finding a well-matched stem cell donor is already a difficult task, the 34-year-old mother of one faces an added challenge: shes Vietnamese.

Duong was first diagnosed with acute leukemia in 2013, when she was 15 weeks pregnant with her second child. She was forced to terminate the pregnancy as she underwent seven months of chemotherapy, putting her cancer into remission for seven months.

But it returned in May, and doctors gave her two months to find a stem cell match.

"The only option for me to get cured is with the generosity of people," she says.

Duongs case is raising the alarm about a need for stem cell donors among Canada's minority groups, as those in need of transplants are more likely to find a donor from the same ethnic background.

Canadian Blood Services says less than 25 per cent of individuals in need of a stem cell transplant will be able to find a match within their own families and will have to turn to the public inthe hopes of finding a suitable donor.

But ethnic minorities are under-represented on donor lists in North America.

Less than one per cent of registered stem cell donors in Quebec are of South Asian descent, according to Hema-Quebec, the provinces blood services agency. The statistics are similar across Canada and in the international donor database.

"There is a cultural effect and religious effect," spokesperson Susie Joron told CTV News. "The other issue is that the biggest registries are in America and Germany, which has a big Caucasian population."

Follow this link:
Montreal woman with leukemia desperately seeks Vietnamese stem cell donors

VANCOUVER Mai Duong, 34, only has six weeksleft to get a life-saving stem cell or bone marrow transplant and shes pleading with the Lower Mainlands Asian population tosave her.

The mother of one was born and raised in Montreal. Shes had good health for most of her life, until she was diagnosed with leukemia in January 2013, while pregnant with her second child. Doctors told her she had to terminate the pregnancy she was at 15 weeks and start chemotherapy immediately.

Duongwent into remission, but ten months later the cancer was back. And this time it was more aggressive and chemotherapy wouldnt work, she was told. Instead, she needed stem cells or a bone marrow transplant.

Even though Im on the international registry list for donors, I did not have a match for the bone marrow. I was devastated when they told me that, she toldGlobal News.

It turns out the problem of finding a match, and a perfect one at that, is more common among those of Asian descent. In 2012, 2-year-old Jeremy Kong of San Francisco was diagnosed with leukemia and couldnt find a match until he went public. After doing so, he found a nine out of tenbone marrow donor match and underwent a transplant, but died a year later. Experts say Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino and other South Asian populations are behind Caucasians when it comes to donating blood and organs.

Were severely underrepresented in the international list. So its not even a local or a national problem; its a global problem, said Duong.

Duong is turning to Vancouver because of its large Asian population, and urging people to get tested. She needs a donor of Vietnamese or Filipino descent for a perfect match, and she needs to find them within six weeks or its unlikely shell survive.

For more information on how you can help Duong, visit her Facebook pageor websiteand get tested at OneMatch.ca.

With files from Darlene Heidemann.

Shaw Media, 2014

See more here:
Montreal woman pleading with B.C. residents to save her life

Patients's virus levels became undetectable after a bone-marrow therapy with stem cells

Scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of a lymphocyte with HIV cluster. Credit: National Cancer Institute via Wikimedia Commons

Scientists have uncovered two new cases of HIV patients in whom the virus has become undetectable.

The two patients, both Australian men, became apparently HIV-free after receiving stem cells to treat cancer. They are still on antiretroviral therapy (ART) as a precaution, but those drugs alone could not be responsible for bringing the virus to such low levels, says David Cooper, director of the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who led the discovery. A year ago, a different group of researchers had reported cases with a similar outcome.

Cooper presented details of the cases today at a press briefing in Melbourne, Australia, where delegates are convening for next week's 20th International AIDS Conference. The announcement came just a day after the news that at least six people heading to the conference died when aMalaysia Airlines flight was shot down in Ukraine.

Cooper began searching for patients who had been purged of the HIV virus after attending a presentation by a US team last year at a conference of the International AIDS Society in Kuala Lumpur. At that meeting, researchers from Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, reported that two patients who had received stem-cell transplants were virus-free.

Cooper and his collaborators scanned the archives of St Vincents hospital in Sydney, one of the largest bone-marrow centres in Australia. We went back and looked whether we had transplanted [on] any HIV-positive patients, and found these two, says Cooper.

The first patient had received a bone-marrow transplant for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2011. His replacement stem cells came from a donor who carried one copy of a gene thought to afford protection against the virus. The other had been treated for leukaemia in 2012.

Unfortunately, several months after the 'Boston' patients stopped taking ART,the virus returned. An infant born with HIV in Mississippi who received antiretroviral therapy soon after birth, then stopped it for more than three years,was thought to have been cured, buthas had the virus rebound, too.

Natural resistance At the moment, there is only one person in the world who is still considered cured of HIV:Timothy Ray Brown, the 'Berlin patient', who received a bone-marrow transplant and has had no signs of the virus in his blood for six years without ART. The bone marrow received by the Berlin patient came from a donor who happened to have a natural genetic resistance to his strain of HIV.

See the article here:
HIV Cleared in Two Patients via Cancer Treatment

Leukemia patient Mai Duong is in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant -- something doctors say the Montreal resident requires within a matter of weeks.

While finding a well-matched stem cell donor is already a difficult task, the 34-year-old mother of one faces an added challenge: shes Vietnamese.

Duong was first diagnosed with acute leukemia in 2013, when she was 15 weeks pregnant with her second child. She was forced to terminate the pregnancy as she underwent seven months of chemotherapy, putting her cancer into remission for seven months.

But it returned in May, and doctors gave her two months to find a stem cell match.

"The only option for me to get cured is with the generosity of people," she says.

Duongs case is raising the alarm about a need for stem cell donors among Canada's minority groups, as those in need of transplants are more likely to find a donor from the same ethnic background.

Canadian Blood Services says less than 25 per cent of individuals in need of a stem cell transplant will be able to find a match within their own families and will have to turn to the public inthe hopes of finding a suitable donor.

But ethnic minorities are under-represented on donor lists in North America.

Less than one per cent of registered stem cell donors in Quebec are of South Asian descent, according to Hema-Quebec, the provinces blood services agency. The statistics are similar across Canada and in the international donor database.

"There is a cultural effect and religious effect," spokesperson Susie Joron told CTV News. "The other issue is that the biggest registries are in America and Germany, which has a big Caucasian population."

More:
Montreal woman desperately seeks Vietnamese stem cell donors

Thomas Deernick, NCMIR/Science Photo Library

The HIV virus (yellow particles), seen on a white blood cell in this scanning electron micrograph.

Scientists have uncovered two new cases of HIV patients in whom the virus has become undetectable.

The two patients, both Australian men, became apparently HIV-free after receiving stem cells to treat cancer. They are still on antiretroviral therapy (ART) as a precaution, but those drugs alone could not be responsible for bringing the virus to such low levels, says David Cooper, director of the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who led the discovery. A year ago, a different group of researchers had reported cases with a similar outcome.

Cooper presented details of the cases today at a press briefing in Melbourne, Australia, where delegates are convening for next week's 20th International AIDS Conference. The announcement came just a day after the news that at least six people heading to the conference died when a Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down in Ukraine.

Cooper began searching for patients who had been purged of the HIV virus after attending a presentation by a US team last year at a conference of the International AIDS Society in Kuala Lumpur. At that meeting, researchers from Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, reported that two patients who had received stem-cell transplants were virus-free.

Cooper and his collaborators scanned the archives of St Vincents hospital in Sydney, one of the largest bone-marrow centres in Australia. We went back and looked whether we had transplanted [on] any HIV-positive patients, and found these two, says Cooper.

The first patient had received a bone-marrow transplant for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2011. His replacement stem cells came from a donor who carried one copy of a gene thought to afford protection against the virus. The other had been treated for leukaemia in 2012.

Unfortunately, several months after the 'Boston' patients stopped taking ART, the virus returned. An infant born with HIV in Mississippi who received antiretroviral therapy soon after birth, then stopped it for more than three years, was thought to have been cured, but has had the virus rebound, too.

At the moment, there is only one person in the world who is still considered cured of HIV: Timothy Ray Brown, the 'Berlin patient', who received a bone-marrow transplant and has had no signs of the virus in his blood for six years without ART. The bone marrow received by the Berlin patient came from a donor who happened to have a natural genetic resistance to his strain of HIV.

See original here:
Cancer treatment clears two Australian patients of HIV

HIV on macrophage image by Public Library of Science

A 53-year-old and a 47-year-old man appear to be clear of HIV after receiving bone marrow transplants for leukaemia and lymphoma respectively at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, Australia, in partnership with the University of New South Wales' Kirby Institute.

Moreover, the leukaemia patient is the first recorded case of clearing the virus without the presence of a rare anti-HIV gene in the donor marrow.

To date, there have been several reported cases of cleared HIV. Timothy Ray Brown, a US citizen, was treated in 2007 and 2008 for leukaemia with transplanted stem cells from a donor with the CCR5 delta32 mutation, which is resistant to HIV, and was reported clear of the virus in 2008. Brown stopped taking his antiretroviral medication and has remained HIV-free.

In 2012, two other patients in Boston had similar treatments with bone marrow cells that did not contain the mutation. They initially tested clear of the virus, but -- when they ceased taking antiretroviral medication -- the virus returned.

The lymphoma patient, treated in 2010, did receive one transplant of bone marrow that contained one of two copies of a gene that is possibly resistant to HIV. The leukaemia patient, treated in 2011, received donor marrow with no resistive gene. Both patients remain on antiretroviral medication as a precaution, since the virus may be in remission rather than completely cured.

"We're so pleased that both patients are doing reasonably well years after the treatment for their cancers and remain free of both the original cancer and the HIV virus," said study senior author and UNSW Kirby Institute director Scientia Professor David Cooper said.

The next step is to figure out why the body responds to a bone marrow transplant in a way that makes the virus retreat. One possible explanation is that the body's immune response to the foreign cells of the transplant causes it to fight harder against HIV. This is because, while bone marrow transplant seems to be the most effective means of clearing the AIDS virus to date, it is not an acceptable risk for patients whose lives aren't already endangered by bone cancer.

"The procedure itself has an up to 10 percent mortality rate," Professor Cooper explained. "But you take that risk in someone with leukaemia or lymphoma because they're going to die without it, and the transplantation will result in cure. For someone with HIV, you would certainly not transplant them when they have an almost normal life span with standard antiretroviral therapy."

The team of researchers plans to replicate the immune response to bone marrow transplantation in a laboratory setting in the hope of devising a less invasive and less dangerous immunotherapy against the virus.

Excerpt from:
Two men cleared of AIDS virus after bone marrow transplants

A temporary drop-in clinic could be set up in Dundee for people to register as bone marrow donors.

Annie Irving, president of the Marrow Dundee student society, has offered to organise the clinic after more than 100 Tele readers registered to help those suffering from blood cancers.

The fantastic response is the result of an overflow of compassion towards baby Faith Cushnie, who, at nine months old, is losing her battle with leukaemia after her donor backed out.

A total of 142 people in Tayside have registered with Anthony Nolan since the article and 873 have visited the charitys website.

Annie, who studies medicine at Dundee University, said: A personal story reaches people more than numbers and statistics and the fact that the little girls chance has been taken away from her because there arent enough people on the register is very sad. Peoples responses have been brilliant though.

The society is affiliated to charity Anthony Nolan, which maintains a register of potential bone marrow donors. Stem cells from bone marrow are used to treat cancers like leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma and blood disorders such as sickle cell disease.

Drop-in clinics allow people to take a spit test to determine whether they are suitable to be a donor. They also have the opportunity to speak to a trained counsellor.

Annie explained: When we counsel people we tell them about the likelihood of being called up and the process of donating.

Annie hopes to be able to organise a clinic as soon as possible and is in the process of contacting venues to find somewhere to host the drop-in.

She said: I want to have a clinic soon and encourage more people to join the register. Donating bone marrow is a chance to save a life.

Continue reading here:
Bid for Dundee bone marrow clinic to meet donor demand

Contact Information

Available for logged-in reporters only

Newswise Buffalo, NY BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York today has redesignated Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) as a Blue Distinction Center for delivering quality transplant care as part of the Blue Distinction Centers for Specialty Care program. Approximately 100 Blue Distinction Centers for Transplants have been designated in the United States, with only four located in New York State.

Blue Distinction Centers are medical facilities shown to deliver quality specialty care based on objective, transparent measures for patient safety and health outcomes that were developed with input from the medical community. To receive a Blue Distinction Centers for Transplants designation, medical facilities must demonstrate success in meeting patient safety criteria as well as transplant-specific quality measures (including survival metrics). RPCI received the same Blue Distinction Center designation in 2011.

Blood and marrow hematopoietic stem-cell transplants, also known as bone-marrow transplants, are a common approach for treating many types of hematologic cancers, including forms of leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma. They involve the transplant of blood or bone marrow stem cells from a donor or from the patients themselves as a way of sparing the patient the toxic effects of intensive chemotherapy and/or radiation.

Because blood and marrow transplant is such a highly complex procedure, a patients medical needs before, during and after a transplant procedure are extensive and labor-intensive, said Philip McCarthy, MD, Director of RPCIs Blood & Marrow Transplant Program. Given that context, were especially proud to once again earn Blue Distinction for our transplant program from BlueCross BlueShield.

More Research shows that Blue Distinction Centers demonstrate better quality and improved outcomes for patients with higher survival rates compared with their peers.

We are pleased that RPCI has been recognized for their quality transplant care, said Dr. Thomas Schenk, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York. As part of the BCBS network they are a valued and once again nationally recognized provider of quality care.

Although rare, the number of transplants including heart, lung, liver, pancreas and bone marrow/blood stem cell in the nation have increased in recent years. There were 28,954 transplant procedures performed in 2013 compared to 28,052 in 2012. Today, more than 123,000 people are awaiting organ donations for transplants, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

In 2006, the Blue Distinction Centers for Specialty Care program was developed to help patients find quality providers for their specialty care needs while encouraging healthcare professionals to improve the care they deliver.

See more here:
Roswell Park Recognized for Quality in Bone Marrow Transplant Care

More than 100 people from Tayside have signed up for the bone marrow register since the Tele published the story of tragic tot Faith Cushnie.

The nine-month-old from Menzieshill needed a bone marrow donation to beat leukaemia, but the donor backed out and doctors have told Faiths parents that there is now nothing they can do for her.

But 109 of you were so touched by Faiths story you immediately registered to be donors at the bone marrow and stem cell charity Anthony Nolan.

Over the same period last year the charity did not have a single registration from Tayside.

Incredibly, Dundee is currently sending the second highest number of visitors to the charitys website, after London, with 658 sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Charities like Anthony Nolan typically struggle for donors, in comparison to campaigns like Give Blood.

Blood was donated in Tayside 21,000 times in the last year but only 4,000 people in the region are on the list of bone marrow donors.

Thats despite an average of around 600 people being diagnosed with leukaemia in Scotland during that time.

Dr David Meiklejohn, a consultant in the department of haematology in Ninewells Hospital, said nearly all donors were volunteers.

He said: Its important to raise awareness as we cant get donors otherwise.

More:
Tele readers rush to save lives: Faith Cushnies plight highlights importance of bone marrow donors

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

15-Jul-2014

Contact: Meng Zhao eic@nrren.org 86-138-049-98773 Neural Regeneration Research

The brain has a low renewable capacity for self-repair and generation of new functional neurons in the treatment of trauma, inflammation and cerebral diseases. Cytotherapy is one option to regenerate central nervous system that aim at replacing the functional depleted cells due to traumatic brain injury (TBI). Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) are also considered a candidate for cytotherapy because they can differentiate into neurons/nerve cells, pass across blood-brain barrier, migrate into the injured region, secrete neurotrophic factor, and provide microenvironment for neural regeneration. Prof. Mohammad Ali Khalili, Research and Clinical Center for Infertility, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Iran and his team administered TBI rats 3106 BMSCs via the tail vein and found that the BMSCs transplanted via the tail vein promoted nerve cell regeneration in injured cerebral cortex, which supplement the lost nerve cells. Related results were published in Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 9, No. 9, 2014).

Article: " Intravenous transplantation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells promotes neural regeneration after traumatic brain injury" by Fatemeh Anbari1, Mohammad Ali Khalili1, Ahmad Reza Bahrami2, Arezoo Khoradmehr1, Fatemeh Sadeghian1, Farzaneh Fesahat1, Ali Nabi1 (1 Research and Clinical Center for Infertility, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran; 2 Institute of Biotechnology, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran)

Anbari F, Khalili MA, Bahrami AR, Khoradmehr A, Sadeghian F, Fesahat F, Nabi A. Intravenous transplantation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells promotes neural regeneration after traumatic brain injury. Neural Regen Res. 2014;9(9):919-923.

Contact: Meng Zhao eic@nrren.org 86-138-049-98773 Neural Regeneration Research http://www.nrronline.org/

###

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

See the article here:
Does intravenous transplantation of BMSCs promote neural regeneration after TBI?

Nine-month-old Faith Cushnie was born with a rare form of leukaemia.

Only a bone marrow transplant could save her life.

And mum and dad Amber Cushnie and Ryan Skelly were over the moon when Faith went into remission and a donor came forward.

Then, the unthinkable: The anonymous donor backed out and Faiths cancer relapsed.

Now doctors have said there is nothing more they can do for Menzieshill tot Faith.

Amber and Ryan hope their daughters tragic case can help drive home the importance of bone marrow donations.

There is currently a shortage of bone marrow donors in the UK.

As a result, Faiths family had to rely on just one individual to save their baby daughter.

Amber, 25, said: People give blood, but theres so little awareness of bone marrow donation. Its really simple to register.

If the transplant had taken place obviously theres no knowing what the situation would have been, but we wouldnt be in this position.

Read this article:
Tragedy of Dundee tot Faith as bone marrow donor hopes dashed

Nicola Cockx[THE COCKX FAMILY]

Nicola Cockx, 35, was so intent on having a child that she postponed having chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant for fear it would risk the health of her future child.

Instead she fought Multiple Myeloma - a form of bone marrow cancer which affects plasma cells- by using holistic methods of treatment and even completed a one year nutrition course to help with a healthy diet.

But, tragically, Mrs Cockx, from Little Bollington, Cheshire, passed away in February 2013, eight months after giving birth to her daughter Harriet.

She had began limping in July 2008 and three months later as she was about to see an orthopaedic specialist she slipped and broke her femur whilst on business trip in Germany with her father John Flowers, who runs a glazing company.

Mrs Cockx's husband Rudy, 39, an IT consultant, told a Manchester inquest: "Following the leg break in the hip area the multiple myeloma was diagnosed. It was extremely stressful."

The condition affects places in the body where there is bone marrow such as the spine, hips, skull and pelvis.

Nicola Cockx with her husband, Rudy [THE COCKX FAMILY]

Mr Cockx said his wife was initially treated with radiotherapy in the area of her hip where the cancer had struck but despite this she sought alternative medication and therapy.

She even considered an autologous stem cell transplant - where your own stem cells are removed and blasted with chemotherapy- but she backed out last minute for fear the chemo toxins would affect her fertility.

View post:
Woman who delayed cancer treatment to give birth died eight months after becoming a mother

Karen Mitchell, 39, was inspired after reading plight of Alice Pyne Teenager lost battle with rare form of cancer in January 2013, aged 17 Before she died she urged people to join the bone marrow register Ms Mitchell tweeted Alice to promise she would - and teenager was delighted Butat 25st and with a BMI of 60, Ms Mitchell was rejected for being too fat Has now lost 11st 7lb and next week will donate bone marrow stem cells

By Anna Hodgekiss

Published: 05:19 EST, 15 July 2014 | Updated: 05:47 EST, 15 July 2014

185 shares

49

View comments

A woman so inspired by the plight of a young girl dying from cancer shed 11st in order to help other people battling the disease.

Encouraged by a tweet from terminally ill Alice Pyne, Karen Mitchell created her own 'bucket list', which included losing weight and saving lives.

Pride Of Britain winner Alice, who had fought Hodgkin's lymphoma from the age of 12, took to social media to urge people to join the bone marrow register.

Karen Mitchell shed 11st 7lb after promising a dying teenager she would join the bone marrow register

Originally posted here:
Woman loses 11st after promise to join bone marrow register

;

AP Photo/Agapito Sanchez, Baylor College of Medicine

MONTREAL Finding a donor for a stem cell transplant is perhaps one of the most difficult things for a cancer patient.

This is because stem cells are one of the few things that patients cannot rely on their immediate family to donate, according to to Doctor Silvy Lachance, Director of the stem cell transplant program at Hpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont.

Of course, we first look within the family, she said.

But there is only 25 per cent chance of identifying a donor. If we dont find a donor within the family, we try the international donor registry.

According to the National Cancer Institute, bone marrow and peripheral blood stem cell transplantations are most commonly used to treat leukemia, lymphoma, neuroblastoma (a cancer that affects mostly infants and children) and multiple myeloma.

While they wait for a compatible donor, patients will be assigned a conditioning regiment, which may include radiation.

This conditioning regiment will be followed by the infusion of stem cells that are compatible with the recipient, said Lachance.

Yet, for most ethnic minorities or anyone of mixed-birth, the chances of finding an anonymous donor remain very difficult.

Follow this link:
The possible alternatives to bone marrow transplant