Archive for the ‘Bone Marrow Stem Cells’ Category

ScienceDaily (Mar. 21, 2012) Powerful new cells created by Cardiff scientists from cheek lining tissue could offer the answer to disorders of the immune system. While the body's immune system protects against many diseases, it can also be harmful. Using white blood cells (lymphocytes), the system can attack insulin-producing cells, causing diabetes, or cause the body to reject transplanted organs.

A team from the School of Dentistry led by Professor Phil Stephens, with colleagues from Stockholm's Karolinska Institute, have found a new group of cells with a powerful ability to suppress the immune system's action.

The team took oral lining cells from the insides of patients' cheeks and cloned them. Laboratory tests showed that even small doses of the cells could completely inhibit the lymphocytes.

The breakthrough suggests that the cheek cells have wide-ranging potential for future therapies for immune system-related diseases. Existing immune system research has focused on adult stem cells, particularly those derived from bone marrow. The cheek tissue cells are much stronger in their action.

Dr Lindsay Davies, a member of the Cardiff team, said: "At this stage, these are only laboratory results. We have yet to recreate the effect outside the laboratory and any treatments will be many years away. However, these cells are extremely powerful and offer promise for combating a number of diseases. They are also easy to collect -- bone marrow stem cells require an invasive biopsy, whereas we just harvest a small biopsy from inside the mouth."

The findings have just been published online in Stem Cells and Development. The team has now been funded by the Medical Research Council to investigate the cloned cells further.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Cardiff University.

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Powerful new cells cloned: Key to immune system disease could lie inside the cheek

Debbi Margosian Chapmans family hopes you will and is offering $10,000 to the person who is a bone marrow match for her to treat her leukemia. Because Debbi is Armenian, her doctors believe her best chances of finding a match is with the Armenian community.

Please join Dr. Frieda Jordan, president of the Armenian Bone Marrow Donor Registry (ABMDR), on Saturday, March 24, at 7 p.m., at the Armenian Cultural and Educational Center, 47 Nichols Avenue, Watertown, Massachusetts, for a presentation and bone marrow drive and become a hero for Debbi or the many other Armenians with blood cancers. If youre between 18-50 years old, you just need to give a quick swab of your cheeks so you can be entered into the Armenian Bone Marrow Donor Registry. If you are a match, in the majority of cases, your stem cells will be harvested in a manner similar to giving bloodthere is no anesthesia or surgery.

If you cant make it to the drive but want to be tested, please visit http://debbichapman.wordpress.com for more information.

See more here:
Armenians can help save a life

Public release date: 21-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Stephen Rouse RouseS@cardiff.ac.uk 44-292-087-5596 Cardiff University

Powerful new cells created by Cardiff University scientists from cheek lining tissue could offer the answer to disorders of the immune system.

While the body's immune system protects against many diseases, it can also be harmful. Using white blood cells (lymphocytes), the system can attack insulin-producing cells, causing diabetes, or cause the body to reject transplanted organs.

A team from Cardiff's School of Dentistry led by Professor Phil Stephens, with colleagues from Stockholm's Karolinska Institute, have found a new group of cells with a powerful ability to suppress the immune system's action.

The team took oral lining cells from the insides of patients' cheeks and cloned them. Laboratory tests showed that even small doses of the cells could completely inhibit the lymphocytes.

The breakthrough suggests that the cheek cells have wide-ranging potential for future therapies for immune system-related diseases. Existing immune system research has focussed on adult stem cells, particularly those derived from bone marrow. The cheek tissue cells are much stronger in their action.

Dr Lindsay Davies, a member of the Cardiff team, said: "At this stage, these are only laboratory results. We have yet to recreate the effect outside the laboratory and any treatments will be many years away. However, these cells are extremely powerful and offer promise for combating a number of diseases. They are also easy to collect bone marrow stem cells require an invasive biopsy, whereas we just harvest a small biopsy from inside the mouth."

The findings have just been published online in Stem Cells and Development. The team has now been funded by the Medical Research Council to investigate the cloned cells further.

###

Excerpt from:
Key to immune system disease could lie inside the cheek

The Stem Cell Transplant Program at the University of Virginia Health System recently performed the first two stem cell transplants in Virginia, using non-embryonic stem cells from umbilical cord blood.

The program offers both bone marrow and stem cell transplants, with a focus on cord blood, to treat leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkins disease and other blood diseases.

While it will take several months to know how effective the cord blood transplants were, the initial results are promising, says Mary Laughlin, MD, an internationally known stem cell expert recruited to UVA to head the program. In both patients, the stem cells began engrafting producing new cells 14 days after the transplant instead of the 24 to 28 days it normally takes.

Why cord blood stem cells? As an obstetrician once told Laughlin: Something thrown away in my OB suite saves a life in your cancer suite.

The cord blood used for these stem cell transplants comes from placentas that otherwise would be discarded following childbirth, Laughlin says. The cord blood is used with the permission of the new parents, she says. By using cord blood stem cells instead of embryonic stem cells, UVAs program sidesteps the ethical, religious and political concerns commonly associated with stem cells, she says.

Other benefits: Cord blood stem cells are also faster and easier to collect than stem cells from other sources; they are also immune tolerant.

Speed is important because there is a narrow window of opportunity to perform a transplant when a patients disease is in remission. And because the cord blood stem cells are immune tolerant meaning they will not attack other cells in the body the chances of a successful transplant are higher and the donor match doesnt have to be as exact, giving more patients the opportunity to receive a transplant.

Stem cell transplants: Part of a fast-growing program Laughlin heads up a team of 29 staff members, including four additional transplant physicians, who began seeing patients in September. The demand for transplants has already been greater than Laughlin and her team expected. The program had initially planned to do 15 transplants in its first year. Instead, it expects to do 100.

Its reflective of this unmet need, Laughlin says. Patients who otherwise would have to travel many states away to have these same procedures, now they can do a fairly short drive from Roanoke, or down from Winchester. Because of our central location, its ideal for them.

What are stem cells? Learn more about how they work.

View post:
First Stem Cell Transplants in Virginia Performed at UVA

By Ron Winslow

Doctors at Yale University have successfully implanted a biodegradablescaffold seeded with a four-year-old girls own bone-marrowcells to help treat a serious heart defect, as WSJs Heartbeat column describes.

The tube about three inches long is made of polyester material similar to that used in the manufacture of dissolvable sutures. Six months after Angela Irizarrys surgery, it had disappeared, replaced by a bioengineered conduit that acts like a normal blood vessel.

The vanishing act for the scaffold was expected, but what happens to the cells, including stem cells, that spawned the new vessel?

Much to the researchers surprise, says Chris Breuer, the Yale pediatric surgeon leading the experimental tissue-engineering project, the cells go away too.

Stem cells and certain other bone-marrow cells have building-block properties that make them the foundation for more specialized cells that grow into the bodys various tissues and structures. Researchers have long believed that stem cells transplanted into heart tissue, for instance, would be a primary component of whatever new tissue that grew as a result.

A lot of people think that when you put cells in, they turn into whatever cells you want them to turn into, Breuer tells the Health Blog. Weve clearly shown that doesnt happen in our graft.

Indeed, in experiments performed to learn how the tubes morphed into blood vessels, Breuer and his colleagues transplanted their scaffold seeded with human cells into mice bred with deficient immune systems to prevent rejection of the cells. Within a few days, the human cellswere gone, replaced within the scaffold by mouse cells, including cells characteristic of those that line the inner wall of blood vessels.

Initially, I refused to believe it, Breuer says. I redid the experiment three different ways and saw the same thing every time.

The upshot: Transplanted cells that have a quality of stem cells dont buildnew parts themselves, he says.They cause the body to induce regeneration.

Here is the original post:
In Treatment of Child’s Heart Defect, Doctors Find a Stem-Cell Surprise

Public release date: 21-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Stephen Rouse RouseS@cardiff.ac.uk 44-292-087-5596 Cardiff University

Powerful new cells created by Cardiff University scientists from cheek lining tissue could offer the answer to disorders of the immune system.

While the body's immune system protects against many diseases, it can also be harmful. Using white blood cells (lymphocytes), the system can attack insulin-producing cells, causing diabetes, or cause the body to reject transplanted organs.

A team from Cardiff's School of Dentistry led by Professor Phil Stephens, with colleagues from Stockholm's Karolinska Institute, have found a new group of cells with a powerful ability to suppress the immune system's action.

The team took oral lining cells from the insides of patients' cheeks and cloned them. Laboratory tests showed that even small doses of the cells could completely inhibit the lymphocytes.

The breakthrough suggests that the cheek cells have wide-ranging potential for future therapies for immune system-related diseases. Existing immune system research has focussed on adult stem cells, particularly those derived from bone marrow. The cheek tissue cells are much stronger in their action.

Dr Lindsay Davies, a member of the Cardiff team, said: "At this stage, these are only laboratory results. We have yet to recreate the effect outside the laboratory and any treatments will be many years away. However, these cells are extremely powerful and offer promise for combating a number of diseases. They are also easy to collect bone marrow stem cells require an invasive biopsy, whereas we just harvest a small biopsy from inside the mouth."

The findings have just been published online in Stem Cells and Development. The team has now been funded by the Medical Research Council to investigate the cloned cells further.

###

Read more from the original source:
Key to immune system disease could lie inside the cheek

By Ron Winslow

Doctors at Yale University have successfully implanted a biodegradablescaffold seeded with a four-year-old girls own bone-marrowcells to help treat a serious heart defect, as WSJs Heartbeat column describes.

The tube about three inches long is made of polyester material similar to that used in the manufacture of dissolvable sutures. Six months after Angela Irizarrys surgery, it had disappeared, replaced by a bioengineered conduit that acts like a normal blood vessel.

The vanishing act for the scaffold was expected, but what happens to the cells, including stem cells, that spawned the new vessel?

Much to the researchers surprise, says Chris Breuer, the Yale pediatric surgeon leading the experimental tissue-engineering project, the cells go away too.

Stem cells and certain other bone-marrow cells have building-block properties that make them the foundation for more specialized cells that grow into the bodys various tissues and structures. Researchers have long believed that stem cells transplanted into heart tissue, for instance, would be a primary component of whatever new tissue that grew as a result.

A lot of people think that when you put cells in, they turn into whatever cells you want them to turn into, Breuer tells the Health Blog. Weve clearly shown that doesnt happen in our graft.

Indeed, in experiments performed to learn how the tubes morphed into blood vessels, Breuer and his colleagues transplanted their scaffold seeded with human cells into mice bred with deficient immune systems to prevent rejection of the cells. Within a few days, the human cellswere gone, replaced within the scaffold by mouse cells, including cells characteristic of those that line the inner wall of blood vessels.

Initially, I refused to believe it, Breuer says. I redid the experiment three different ways and saw the same thing every time.

The upshot: Transplanted cells that have a quality of stem cells dont buildnew parts themselves, he says.They cause the body to induce regeneration.

Originally posted here:
In Treatment of Child’s Heart Defect, Doctors Find a Stem-Cell Surprise

To: HEALTH, MEDICAL AND NATIONAL EDITORS

MIAMI, March 20, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- New findings from a transplant study led by scientists from the Diabetes Research Institute (DRI) at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and a DRI Federation center at Xiamen University in China showed that mesenchymal stem cells may replace a powerful anti-rejection drug in transplant recipients. The results of this pioneering study involving kidney transplant patients is published in the March 21 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and may fundamentally transform the future of clinical transplantation.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120126/DC42842LOGO)

Patients undergoing a transplant routinely receive a regimen of immunosuppressive therapy to block the body's immune system from rejecting the donor organ or cells. While these drugs have been shown to improve graft function and minimize rejection episodes, they increase the risk of dangerous side effects, including infections and organ toxicity. To eliminate these adverse effects, scientists at the Diabetes Research Institute and collaborating centers worldwide have been investigating safer methods for preventing transplant rejection and have turned their attention to naturally-occurring cells in the body that have immuno-modulatory properties, like mesenchymal stem cells.

A mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) is a type of cell that can differentiate into bone, cartilage, fat and other body tissues. But MSCs have also been found to have a number of other beneficial therapeutic properties, including their ability to modulate the immune system by inhibiting T-cell proliferation, eliminating graft-vs.-host disease, limiting cytotoxic inflammation and stimulating vascularization, among other benefits.

"This study represents a first, important step towards the definition of cell-based strategies that will one day allow for transplantation without the need for life-long, anti-rejection drugs," said Camillo Ricordi, M.D., director of the University of Miami Diabetes Research Institute and Cell Transplant Center. "The worldwide collaborative strategy of the Diabetes Research Institute Federation and The Cure Alliance has resulted in yet another small step forward in our worldwide cure-focused efforts, indicating safety and efficacy of a stem cell-based strategy towards reducing and eventually eliminating anti-rejection drugs. This is particularly important to the DRI mission, as transplantation without immunosuppression is a major goal in any strategy for transplantation of insulin producing cells and a requirement for becoming a reality for all patients with Type 1 or Type 2 insulin dependent diabetes."

In this recent study, "Induction Therapy with Autologous Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Living-Related Kidney Transplants," patients with end-stage renal disease received infusions of bone-marrow derived autologous mesenchymal stem cells together with either standard-dose or low-dose calcineurin inhibitors (CNI). The control group received an immunosuppression regimen consisting of anti-IL-2 receptor antibody plus standard-dose CNI.

After one year post-transplant, the results of the study indicate that among the patients undergoing a kidney transplant, the use of autologous MSCs compared with the standard immunosuppressive therapy resulted in lower incidence of acute organ rejection, decreased risk of infection and better kidney function.

"We reported on the first 12 months follow-up, which showed no adverse events associated with MSC therapy. We will continue monitoring the patients in the study to assess the long-term effects on kidney transplant function and survival, as well as the safety of MSCs transplantation in this setting. Should long-term safety of MSCs be confirmed, it may be valuable for improving transplantation outcomes while reducing the risks associated with anti-rejection drugs," said Antonello Pileggi, M.D., Ph.D., director of Preclinical Cell Processing and Translational Models Program at the Cell Transplant Center of the DRI.

"This collaboration was part of the ongoing global efforts of The Diabetes Research Institute Federation and of The Cure Focus Research Alliance. The opportunity to contribute these results obtained through the combined team efforts of Affiliated Fuzhou General Hospital of Xiamen University and DRI to a journal as high impact as JAMA represents an important achievement for the China-USA Collaborative Human Cell Transplant Program at the Cell Transplant Center of DRI," said Xiumin Xu, M.S., director of the China-US Collaborative Human Cell Transplant Program at the Diabetes Research Institute.

Original post:
Collaborative Study from the Diabetes Research Institute Federation and The Cure Alliance Shows that Stem Cells Can ...

Newswise Doctors at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that a new drug makes chemotherapy more effective in treating acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the white blood cells. Instead of attacking these cells directly, the drug helps drive them out of the bone marrow and into the bloodstream, where they are more vulnerable to chemotherapy.

Were usually very good at clearing these leukemia cells from the blood, says Geoffrey L. Uy, MD, assistant professor of medicine and co-first author on the study published in the journal Blood. But its much harder to clear these cancerous cells from the bone marrow.

This combined phase 1 and 2 clinical trial included 52 patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who had relapsed or whose AML was resistant to the standard chemotherapy regimen. In the phase 2 portion with 46 patients, all received the investigational drug, and 46 percent achieved complete remission, meaning no evidence of cancer could be found in the blood or bone marrow after treatment.

In general, we see complete remission rates between 20 and 30 percent, says Uy, who treats patients at the Alivn J. Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital. But a lot depends on individual patient characteristics.

Indeed, recent genetic studies have shown that mutations leading to AML may differ greatly among patients. But regardless of individual mutations, all of these leukemia cells rely in some way on the protective effects of the bone marrow, according to senior author John F. DiPersio, MD, PhD, the Virginia E. and Sam J. Golman Professor of Medicine.

With DNA sequencing identifying so many mutations that are unique to one patient, it may be very hard to find therapies that work directly on the cancer, says DiPersio, who also treats patients at the Siteman Cancer Center. Instead, we are targeting a common pathway that all leukemic cells are addicted to in this case, the relatively normal environment of the bone marrow.

DiPersio calls the results of this study encouraging and worthy of additional exploration.

If these results are repeated in a larger study, it would be transformative, he says. It would change the standard way we treat these patients we would use this approach with everybody. In addition, the approach of targeting the tumor microenvironment could also be exploited for the treatment of other hematologic and solid tumor malignancies.

Bone marrow protects leukemia cells by inhibiting the cell-suicide response that might otherwise lead AML cells to self-destruct. Although leukemia cells in the bone marrow do not rapidly divide, their stability makes them very resistant to treatment. And while chemotherapy can clear the bloodstream of leukemia for a period of time, these protected cells in the bone marrow may cause the cancer to return.

The drug used in this study, called plerixafor, blocks the leukemia cells from attaching to the bone marrow. Released from their protective environment into the bloodstream, the cells lose the bone marrows survival signals and begin to divide. Rapidly dividing cells are more sensitive to chemotherapy.

Original post:
Drug Makes Leukemia More Vulnerable to Chemo

Public release date: 20-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Omar Montejo omontejo@miami.edu 305-243-5654 JAMA and Archives Journals

CHICAGO Among patients with end-stage renal disease undergoing living-related kidney transplants, the use of bone-marrow derived mesenchymal (cells that can differentiate into a variety of cell types) stem cells instead of antibody induction therapy resulted in a lower incidence of acute rejection, decreased risk of opportunistic infection, and better estimated kidney function at 1 year, according to a study in the March 21 issue of JAMA.

Induction therapy, routinely implemented in organ transplant procedures, consists of use of biologic agents to block early immune activation. New induction immunosuppressive protocols with increased efficacy and minimal adverse effects are desirable. "Antibody-based induction therapy plus calcineurin inhibitors (CNIs) reduce acute rejection rates in kidney recipients; however, opportunistic infections and toxic CNI effects remain challenging. Reportedly, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have successfully treated graft-vs.-host disease," according to background information in the article.

Jianming Tan, M.D., Ph.D., of Xiamen University, Fuzhou, China and colleagues examined the effect of autologous (derived from the same individual) MSC infusion as an alternative to anti-IL-2 receptor antibody for induction therapy in adults undergoing living-related donor kidney transplants. The randomized study included 159 patients. Patients were inoculated with marrow-derived autologous MSC at kidney reperfusion and two weeks later. Fifty-three patients received standard-dose and 52 patients received low-dose CNIs (80 percent of standard); 51 patients in the control group received anti-IL-2 receptor antibody plus standard-dose CNIs.

Patient and graft survival at 13 to 30 months was similar in all groups. The researchers found that after 6 months, 4 of 53 patients (7.5 percent) in the autologous MSC plus standard-dose CNI group and 4 of 52 patients (7.7 percent) in the low-dose group compared with 11 of 51 controls (21.6 percent) had biopsy-confirmed acute rejection. Renal function recovered faster among both MSC groups showing increased estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR; a measure of kidney function) levels during the first month after surgery than the control group.

The authors also found that during the 1-year follow-up, combined analysis of MSC-treated groups revealed significantly decreased risk of opportunistic infections than the control group.

"In our prospective randomized trial on a large patient population, autologous MSCs could replace anti-IL-2 receptor-induction therapy in living-related donor kidney transplants. Recipients of autologous MSCs showed lower frequency of biopsy-confirmed acute rejection in the first 6 months than the control group," the researchers write.

"Extended monitoring of study participants will allow assessment of the long-term effects of autologous MSCs on renal allograft function, survival, and safety."

###

Read more:
Use of stem cells for adults receiving related donor kidney transplants appears to improve outcomes

Public release date: 19-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Julia Evangelou Strait straitj@wustl.edu 314-286-0141 Washington University School of Medicine

Doctors at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that a new drug makes chemotherapy more effective in treating acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the white blood cells. Instead of attacking these cells directly, the drug helps drive them out of the bone marrow and into the bloodstream, where they are more vulnerable to chemotherapy.

"We're usually very good at clearing these leukemia cells from the blood," says Geoffrey L. Uy, MD, assistant professor of medicine and co-first author on the study published in the journal Blood. "But it's much harder to clear these cancerous cells from the bone marrow."

This combined phase 1 and 2 clinical trial included 52 patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who had relapsed or whose AML was resistant to the standard chemotherapy regimen. In the phase 2 portion with 46 patients, all received the investigational drug, and 46 percent achieved complete remission, meaning no evidence of cancer could be found in the blood or bone marrow after treatment.

"In general, we see complete remission rates between 20 and 30 percent," says Uy, who treats patients at the Alivn J. Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital. "But a lot depends on individual patient characteristics."

Indeed, recent genetic studies have shown that mutations leading to AML may differ greatly among patients. But regardless of individual mutations, all of these leukemia cells rely in some way on the protective effects of the bone marrow, according to senior author John F. DiPersio, MD, PhD, the Virginia E. and Sam J. Golman Professor of Medicine.

"With DNA sequencing identifying so many mutations that are unique to one patient, it may be very hard to find therapies that work directly on the cancer," says DiPersio, who also treats patients at the Siteman Cancer Center. "Instead, we are targeting a common pathway that all leukemic cells are addicted to in this case, the relatively normal environment of the bone marrow."

DiPersio calls the results of this study encouraging and worthy of additional exploration.

"If these results are repeated in a larger study, it would be transformative," he says. "It would change the standard way we treat these patients we would use this approach with everybody. In addition, the approach of targeting the tumor microenvironment could also be exploited for the treatment of other hematologic and solid tumor malignancies."

See the rest here:
Drug makes leukemia more vulnerable to chemo

Nigeria launches its first ever bone marrow registry, which should make it easier to find matches for black people around the world.

By Jef Akst | March 19, 2012

Bone marrow transplants, or hematopoietic stem cell transplantations (HSCT), treat more than 70 different diseases, including some types of leukemia, lymphoma, and sickle cell anaemia. But such treatment often requires the matching of strangers for their human leukocyte antigen (HLA) tissue type. And while 70 percent of Caucasian patients are successfully matched, only 17 percent of black people in the United States are as lucky, according to The New York Stem Cell Foundation, likely because only 8 percent of donors in US registries are black.

The Bone Marrow Registry in Nigeria (BMRN), the countrys first ever bone marrow registry and the continents second (South Africa having the only other accredited registry), aims to change all that. The registry follows the excitement surrounding Nigerias first bone marrow transplant last October, in which a young sickle cell anaemia patient received bone marrow from a sibling. In addition to providing an invaluable service to the people of Nigeria, the registry, launched by Seun Adebiyi of Yale University, should help black patients around the world find matched donors. The launch of the registry was discussed at the NCD Child Conference currently being held in San Francisco.

Adebiyi also plans to establish another Nigerian source for stem cell transplantsan umbilical cord blood bank. With as little as $75,000, we could build [a cord blood bank] in Nigeria by the end of this year instead of discarding this valuable source of stem cells, he said in a Lancet press release. There are almost 400 distinct ethnic groups and over 154 million people in Nigeria alone, and there is a huge population of umbilical stem cells just waiting to be banked in the maternity wards of hospitals around the country.

By Hannah Waters

Replacing immune cells in a mouse model of Rett syndrome, a developmental brain disorder, improved symptoms, suggesting a new target for treatment.

By Megan Scudellari

The biomedical institute seeks up to 30 new investigators in its first nationwide search in 5 years.

By Cristina Luiggi

Read more from the original source:
New African Bone Marrow Registry

Lindsay Porter's kidneys were failing rapidly when a friend offered to donate one of his. Then she made an unusual request: Would he donate part of his immune system, too?

Every day for the rest of their lives, transplant recipients must swallow handfuls of pills to keep their bodies from rejecting a donated organ. The Chicago woman hoped to avoid those problematic drugs, enrolling in a study to try to trick her own immune system into accepting a foreign kidney.

It's one of a series of small, high-stakes experiments around the country that has researchers hopeful that they're finally closing in on how to help at least some transplant patients go drug-free. The key: Create a sort of twin immunity, by transplanting some of the kidney donor's immune-producing cells along with the new organ.

"I'm so lucky," says the 47-year-old Porter, who stumbled across the research at Chicago's Northwestern University. Porter was able to quit her pills last summer, a year after her transplant, and says, "I feel amazing."

These experiments are a big gamble. If the technique fails, patients could lose their new kidney, possibly their lives. Doctors stress that no one should try quitting anti-rejection drugs on their own.

AP

Why risk it even in a careful scientific study? Anti-rejection medications can cause debilitating, even deadly, side effects, from fatigue and infections to an increased risk of cancer and kidney damage.

Without the drugs, "the hope for me is I'm able to keep this kidney for the rest of my life," Porter says.

Across the country, Stanford University is testing a slightly different transplant method and hosted a reunion earlier this month for about a dozen kidney recipients who've been drug-free for up to three years.

"These people who are off their drugs, they're cured," says Dr. Samuel Strober, who leads the study of Stanford's approach. "If they have to be on drugs the rest of their life, it doesn't have the same meaning of 'cure.'"

Read more from the original source:
Transplant Patients Seek Life Without Drugs

Lindsay Porter's kidneys were failing rapidly when a friend offered to donate one of his. Then she made an unusual request: Would he donate part of his immune system, too?

Every day for the rest of their lives, transplant recipients must swallow handfuls of pills to keep their bodies from rejecting a donated organ. The Chicago woman hoped to avoid those problematic drugs, enrolling in a study to try to trick her own immune system into accepting a foreign kidney.

It's one of a series of small, high-stakes experiments around the country that has researchers hopeful that they're finally closing in on how to help at least some transplant patients go drug-free. The key: Create a sort of twin immunity, by transplanting some of the kidney donor's immune-producing cells along with the new organ.

"I'm so lucky," says the 47-year-old Porter, who stumbled across the research at Chicago's Northwestern University. Porter was able to quit her pills last summer, a year after her transplant, and says, "I feel amazing."

These experiments are a big gamble. If the technique fails, patients could lose their new kidney, possibly their lives. Doctors stress that no one should try quitting anti-rejection drugs on their own.

AP

Why risk it even in a careful scientific study? Anti-rejection medications can cause debilitating, even deadly, side effects, from fatigue and infections to an increased risk of cancer and kidney damage.

Without the drugs, "the hope for me is I'm able to keep this kidney for the rest of my life," Porter says.

Across the country, Stanford University is testing a slightly different transplant method and hosted a reunion earlier this month for about a dozen kidney recipients who've been drug-free for up to three years.

"These people who are off their drugs, they're cured," says Dr. Samuel Strober, who leads the study of Stanford's approach. "If they have to be on drugs the rest of their life, it doesn't have the same meaning of 'cure.'"

See more here:
Transplant Patients Seek Life Without Drugs

HUNTSVILLE Tomi Garrison had no idea what her future would hold when she agreed to have her mouth swabbed during a bone marrow donor drive in the spring of2010.

The Sam Houston State University softball player and psychology major was a sophomore when the Be The Match Registry did a presentation in her health class, calling on volunteers to start the process that would determine if they had compatible bone marrow to someone who desperately needed it.

My friend and I said yeah well do it, never thinking wed be called on, because statistically the chances of us being a match were so slim, said Garrison, now a senior at SHSU.

But the unlikely scenario became reality a year later when Garrison got an email that would soon change not only her life but also someone elses.

The email said I was a possible match and asked if I would do more testing. So I went in for testing at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, where they took a lot of blood and tested to see if the antigens matched up, she said. Even then the chances of being an accurate match werent good, but I was hoping I would be a match.

Garrisons hopes came true in October 2011, when she received word that she had compatible bone marrow to a 59-year-old woman who suffers frommultiple myeloma.

She quickly agreed to become a donor for a woman shed never met.

My mom cries about everything, said Garrison. So she started crying because she was just proud of me because this was solely my decision.

The tears continued when Garrison shared the news with SHSU health instructor Susie Stone and Roseanne Keathley, acting chair of the SHSU Department of Health and Kinesiology.

We just screamed and cried, Keathley said. We were so excited that one of our students here in the health department was a match and that she was willing to take the time away from school to do this.

Read more here:
SHSU senior donates bone marrow to cancer victim

For about three days in January, Matt Ladd said he didnt know whether it was day or night, what was top or bottom.

I was probably as sick as Ive ever been, said Ladd, a Billings game warden, in a telephone interview from Seattle. As things got progressively worse and worse, I was really concerned about what was going on right then.

Ladd was headed to Seattle for stem cell bone marrow transplant surgery when an infection he was being treated for worsened. The infection started around a catheter inserted into his chest to deliver chemotherapy drugs. The chemo was battling Ladds acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome, which was diagnosed in September. His bone marrow wasnt producing enough red blood cells.

The chemo worked. He was in remission and on his way to Seattle for a bone marrow transplant when the infection sent him into a rapid downward spiral. Because of the location of the catheter, the infection attacked his heart valves. During the struggle with the infection, his kidneys failed, his body retained water and he swelled up.

The infection scuttled plans for the bone marrow transplant surgery. With his kidneys failing, he had to undergo dialysis. As a final insult to his immune system, he had to take more chemotherapy since the surgery had been delayed and doctors feared the MDS might return.

My body and kidneys didnt respond well to the chemo, he said.

More than a month after he was scheduled to undergo surgery, Ladd is living in an apartment north of Seattle as family members rotate caretaking duties. His wife, Maureen, a math teacher at Billings West High, is holding down the fort at home, trying to maintain a sense of normalcy for their sons, Dylan, Logan and Jack.

What was going to be a short process has become a very long process, Maureen said.

Now the Ladds are waiting to hear whether Matt and his sister, Jessica Cook, will take part in a Seattle Cancer Center Alliance study of a new method of bone marrow transplantation. Since Ladds kidneys have been injured, he would normally have to have a reduced-intensity transplant used for the elderly and those with health issues, Maureen explained.

The experimental method would treat Cook, Ladds only sibling and a bone marrow transplant match, with Lipitor prior to the surgery. The cholesterol-lowering drug has shown promise in preventing reactions to transplants. If they are accepted for the study, it would mean a further delay of surgery, since Cook would have to be on the drug for a couple of weeks prior to the operation.

Read more from the original source:
Billings game warden fights cancer complications

For David and Mary Hubbell of Fisher, every day spent with their 18-year-old daughter, Katy, feels like a treasure.

Katy Hubbell was 4 years old in 1997 when doctors diagnosed her with a life-threatening bone marrow disease called aplastic anemia.

The disease prevented Katy's body from producing enough blood cells to keep her alive, and at least one doctor gave the Fisher girl a year to live.

But Katy and her family received new hope when she received a bone marrow transplant in Houston, followed by rounds of chemotherapy treatment. Community members offered their prayers and put on fundraisers to help pay for the family's bills.

Nearly 13 years after the life-changing procedure, Katy Hubbell is a senior at Fisher High School, where she has a part in the school play, completes anime drawings and plans to go to college.

"Katy continues to amaze us, and every day with this smiling girl is a gift," said Katy's mother, Mary Hubbell. "The experience changed us as people and made us realize that life is so short."

David Hubbell took his daughter to a pediatrician at Carle after she began receiving an abnormal number of bruises in 1997. Blood tests showed Katy's platelet level was dangerously low.

When her red and white cell counts started to fall, Katy was transferred to Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where she was diagnosed with aplastic anemia, along with lymphoma.

"Patients with severe aplastic anemia have no immune system," Mary Hubbell said. "They can't be outside of a hospital environment, and any kind of infection can be very life-threatening."

Katy was kept at home to avoid infection, and visitors had to scrub themselves before entering the home.

More:
13 years after a bone-marrow transplant, Katy Hubbell plans for college

Rett syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder, causes problems with communication, coordination and movement.

AP Photo/The Idaho Statesman

A bone-marrow transplant can treat a mouse version of Rett syndrome, a severe autism spectrum disorder that affects roughly 1 in 10,00020,000 girls born worldwide (boys with the disease typically die within a few weeks of birth).

The findings, published today in Nature1, suggest that brain-dwelling immune cells called microglia are defective in Rett syndrome. The authors say their findings also raise the possibility that bone-marrow transplants or other means of boosting the brains immune cells could help to treat the disease.

If we show the immune system is playing a very important role in Rett patients and we could replace it in a safe way, we may develop some feasible therapies in the future, says Jonathan Kipnis, a neuroscientist at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, who led the study.

Mutations in a single gene on the X chromosome,MECP2, cause the disease. Because they have only one X chromosome, boys born with the mutation die within weeks of birth. Girls with one faulty copy develop Rett syndrome.

Symptoms of Rett syndrome typically set in between 6 and 18 months of age. Girls with the disease have trouble putting on weight and often do not learn to speak. They repeat behaviours such as hand-washing and tend to have trouble walking. Many develop breathing problems and apnoea. Rett syndrome is classified as an autism spectrum disorder, and treatments focus on symptoms such as nutritional and gastrointestinal problems.

The MECP2 protein orchestrates the activity of many other genes, but how its alteration causes Rett syndrome is a mystery. I wish I knew, says Kipnis.

Neurons express more MECP2 than any other cell in the brain, and restoring the genes function in mouse neurons reverses some disease symptoms2.Recently, however, scientists have begun to suspect that other brain cells are also involved. Re-activating MECP2 in brain-support cells called astrocytes treats gait problems and anxiety in mice3.

Kipnis and his team focused on another class of brain cell microglia. They are the brains macrophages, a type of immune cell that sops up the detritus created by other cells. Studies have linked various immune cells to brain function, including repetitive and compulsive behaviour4, which led Kipnis to test whether replacing an immune system in mice lacking Mecp2 with cells containing the gene could improve symptoms.

Continued here:
Bone-marrow transplant reverses Rett syndrome in mice

For David and Mary Hubbell of Fisher, every day spent with their 18-year-old daughter, Katy, feels like a treasure.

Katy Hubbell was 4 years old in 1997 when doctors diagnosed her with a life-threatening bone marrow disease called aplastic anemia.

The disease prevented Katy's body from producing enough blood cells to keep her alive, and at least one doctor gave the Fisher girl a year to live.

But Katy and her family received new hope when she received a bone marrow transplant in Houston, followed by rounds of chemotherapy treatment. Community members offered their prayers and put on fundraisers to help pay for the family's bills.

Nearly 13 years after the life-changing procedure, Katy Hubbell is a senior at Fisher High School, where she has a part in the school play, completes anime drawings and plans to go to college.

"Katy continues to amaze us, and every day with this smiling girl is a gift," said Katy's mother, Mary Hubbell. "The experience changed us as people and made us realize that life is so short."

David Hubbell took his daughter to a pediatrician at Carle after she began receiving an abnormal number of bruises in 1997. Blood tests showed Katy's platelet level was dangerously low.

When her red and white cell counts started to fall, Katy was transferred to Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where she was diagnosed with aplastic anemia, along with lymphoma.

"Patients with severe aplastic anemia have no immune system," Mary Hubbell said. "They can't be outside of a hospital environment, and any kind of infection can be very life-threatening."

Katy was kept at home to avoid infection, and visitors had to scrub themselves before entering the home.

Read the rest here:
13 years after a bone-marrow transplant, Katy Hubbell plans for college

Rett syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder, causes problems with communication, coordination and movement.

AP Photo/The Idaho Statesman

A bone-marrow transplant can treat a mouse version of Rett syndrome, a severe autism spectrum disorder that affects roughly 1 in 10,00020,000 girls born worldwide (boys with the disease typically die within a few weeks of birth).

The findings, published today in Nature1, suggest that brain-dwelling immune cells called microglia are defective in Rett syndrome. The authors say their findings also raise the possibility that bone-marrow transplants or other means of boosting the brains immune cells could help to treat the disease.

If we show the immune system is playing a very important role in Rett patients and we could replace it in a safe way, we may develop some feasible therapies in the future, says Jonathan Kipnis, a neuroscientist at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, who led the study.

Mutations in a single gene on the X chromosome,MECP2, cause the disease. Because they have only one X chromosome, boys born with the mutation die within weeks of birth. Girls with one faulty copy develop Rett syndrome.

Symptoms of Rett syndrome typically set in between 6 and 18 months of age. Girls with the disease have trouble putting on weight and often do not learn to speak. They repeat behaviours such as hand-washing and tend to have trouble walking. Many develop breathing problems and apnoea. Rett syndrome is classified as an autism spectrum disorder, and treatments focus on symptoms such as nutritional and gastrointestinal problems.

The MECP2 protein orchestrates the activity of many other genes, but how its alteration causes Rett syndrome is a mystery. I wish I knew, says Kipnis.

Neurons express more MECP2 than any other cell in the brain, and restoring the genes function in mouse neurons reverses some disease symptoms2.Recently, however, scientists have begun to suspect that other brain cells are also involved. Re-activating MECP2 in brain-support cells called astrocytes treats gait problems and anxiety in mice3.

Kipnis and his team focused on another class of brain cell microglia. They are the brains macrophages, a type of immune cell that sops up the detritus created by other cells. Studies have linked various immune cells to brain function, including repetitive and compulsive behaviour4, which led Kipnis to test whether replacing an immune system in mice lacking Mecp2 with cells containing the gene could improve symptoms.

More here:
Bone-marrow transplant reverses Rett syndrome in mice

For about three days in January, Matt Ladd said he didnt know whether it was day or night, what was top or bottom.

I was probably as sick as Ive ever been, said Ladd, a Billings game warden, in a telephone interview from Seattle. As things got progressively worse and worse, I was really concerned about what was going on right then.

Ladd was headed to Seattle for stem cell bone marrow transplant surgery when an infection he was being treated for worsened. The infection started around a catheter inserted into his chest to deliver chemotherapy drugs. The chemo was battling Ladds acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome, which was diagnosed in September. His bone marrow wasnt producing enough red blood cells.

The chemo worked. He was in remission and on his way to Seattle for a bone marrow transplant when the infection sent him into a rapid downward spiral. Because of the location of the catheter, the infection attacked his heart valves. During the struggle with the infection, his kidneys failed, his body retained water and he swelled up.

The infection scuttled plans for the bone marrow transplant surgery. With his kidneys failing, he had to undergo dialysis. As a final insult to his immune system, he had to take more chemotherapy since the surgery had been delayed and doctors feared the MDS might return.

My body and kidneys didnt respond well to the chemo, he said.

More than a month after he was scheduled to undergo surgery, Ladd is living in an apartment north of Seattle as family members rotate caretaking duties. His wife, Maureen, a math teacher at Billings West High, is holding down the fort at home, trying to maintain a sense of normalcy for their sons, Dylan, Logan and Jack.

What was going to be a short process has become a very long process, Maureen said.

Now the Ladds are waiting to hear whether Matt and his sister, Jessica Cook, will take part in a Seattle Cancer Center Alliance study of a new method of bone marrow transplantation. Since Ladds kidneys have been injured, he would normally have to have a reduced-intensity transplant used for the elderly and those with health issues, Maureen explained.

The experimental method would treat Cook, Ladds only sibling and a bone marrow transplant match, with Lipitor prior to the surgery. The cholesterol-lowering drug has shown promise in preventing reactions to transplants. If they are accepted for the study, it would mean a further delay of surgery, since Cook would have to be on the drug for a couple of weeks prior to the operation.

See the original post here:
Billings game warden fights cancer complications

18-02-2011 06:00 What is the difference between stem cell transplantation and bone marrow transplantation?

Read more:
Bone Marrow Transplantation: Stem Cell Transplantation - Video

The same species that submitted itself to experimentation for treatments to human cancers is now getting a cure with N.C. State's first canine bone marrow transplant.

In 2008, Dr. Steven Suter, assistant professor of oncology, began performing bone marrow transplants, BMT, on dogs. N.C. State is the only university in the world that offers this treatment. While private practices do exist, mainly on the west coast, they have treated few dogs. People have traveled from across the country to utilize these services.

Once I became an oncologist, I realized that this could probably be done now in a clinical setting if the appropriate machines could be found, apheresis machines. Once I got a hold of some of these machines, I started collecting peripheral blood progenitor cells from a few research colony dogs. After I showed we could do that, we moved on to start transplanting client-owned dogs. We opened our canine BMT unit in October 2008, Suter said.

Until recently, the transplants used stem cells from the dogs' own blood, so only those who had a disease in remission could be treated. The treatment was typically used on dogs with lymphoma.

The cure rate of dogs with lymphoma treated with chemotherapy is less than 5 percent, so I felt we could do better on that front with BMT, Suter said. We have modified the protocol extensively since the first 24 dogs, so we are hoping it will now be better.

However this all changed with two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Chip and Zeke, earlier this year. Zeke was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia in December 2011. This disease could only be treated by use of donor bone marrow. Chip, a littermate, was the prime choice.

We do require a donor, since we can not harvest progenitor cells from the patient. Leukemia patients have too many cancer cells floating around in their blood, so the machine would harvest them also. So, we find a matched donor who does not have cancer obviously, and harvest the cells from them, Suter said. We don't use this procedure regularly to treat dogs with leukemia ... we've treated two dogs with leukemia. We use it mainly to treat dogs with lymphoma, which is a very different disease."

The owners of the dogs met for the first time at N.C. State for the procedure to take place.

Jason Hefner, a fourth year in veterinary medicine, worked with Zeke while he was here.

To our knowledge, only one previous case has been treated with a donor. Zeke had a great disposition, and I looked forward to visiting him each morning for his treatments. Zeke is now in New York and looking forward to a happy and healthy life, Hefner said.

Link:
University gives dog a bone marrow transplant

14 March 2012 Last updated at 09:00 ET By Jane O'Brien BBC News, Maine

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

One of Doreen Flynn's daughters, 13-year-old Jordan, says the whole transplant process scares her

A mother in the US is desperate to find bone marrow donors to save the lives of her three daughters who are critically ill from a rare blood disorder. Now, she is challenging a federal law barring her from compensating prospective donors.

Thousands of Americans who need transplants die every year because they cannot find a suitable donor, advocates say.

They propose a controversial way to encourage more people to come forward: Pay them.

"It is widening the donor pool. A lot of times employers don't pay for the time off that these donors take from work," says Doreen Flynn of Lewiston, Maine.

"So I think in those instances those people can say, 'you know I can do that,' knowing that there will be a support system for them at the end."

Ms Flynn's three daughters have a rare genetic blood disorder called Fanconi Anaemia. Their bone marrow does not make enough blood cells to keep them healthy and their only hope for survival is a transplant.

It is against US law to sell body parts - including bone marrow. But last year, Ms Flynn won a court ruling in favour of compensating donors whose blood stem cells are collected using a process called aphaeresis.

Read the original here:
Should it be legal to pay for bone marrow donations?

Edited by M. A. Hayat 384 pp, $209 New York, NY, Springer, 2012 ISBN-13: 978-9-4007-2015-2

Stem cells and cancer stem cells are 2 distinct, evolving, and promising areas of research. Hematopoietic stem cells are already used in the treatment of bone marrow failure and hematologic malignancies, and there is now great interest in isolating stem cells from other organs for use in replenishing damaged tissue in the heart, brain, bones, and other organs and structures. In contrast, cancer stem cells, a newly recognized component of some cancers, have some properties of pluripotent stem cells in that they replicate without normal cell cycle regulation and apoptosis. Moreover, they are naturally resistant to chemotherapy because of drug-exuding pumps, DNA repair proteins, and dormancy; thus, these cells are now suspected to be the root cause of relapse and metastasis after conventional therapies in some malignancies, especially leukemia. Targeting cancer stem cells in addition to cancer cells may therefore lead to better eradication of cancer than is presently possible.

Read more:
Stem Cells and Cancer Stem Cells: Therapeutic Applications in Disease and Injury, Volume 2 [Book and Media Reviews]