Published: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 at 12:39 p.m. Last Modified: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 at 12:39 p.m.

Jaimonee Hagins, 12, a seventh-grade student at Howard Middle School, needs a blood and marrow transplant to help battle the disease, which often has her in such deep pain she cannot attend classes.

Understanding only too well the ravages of sickle cell anemia is her mother, Charlet Harrison, of Ocala. She and her brother Myron Harrison grew up with the condition.

Sickle cell anemia is the most common form of sickle cell disease, an inherited disorder in which red blood cells are abnormally shaped. This results in painful episodes, serious infections, chronic anemia and damage to body organs.

According to the National Institutes of Health, a blood and marrow stem cell transplant can work well for treating sickle cell anemia as it replaces faulty stem cells with healthy ones. Stem cells are found in bone marrow.

According to Dr. Ali Nassar of Munroe Heart, A bone marrow transplant produces new cells. Donor to recipient genetically must be a close match. Only with identical twins is the match 100 percent. If the procedure is a success, it is considered a cure.

I hope I will find a donor. If they help me, they will save my life, Jaimonee said.

When asked what has been the most difficult part of her disorder, she said the surgeries. She also said the frequent pain is real achy.

According to her mother, Jaimonees surgeries have included removal of her spleen, at age 1, and her gall bladder, at age 4. She has had episodes affecting other major organs.

Blood cells get clogged. Normally, they are round in shape in order to flow through the body. When they get clogged, they cause pain, Charlet Harrison said. A clog on an arm or leg is easy to get over; it is when they get clogged in your heart or another major organ that damage occurs. The spleen and gall bladder, with sickle cell patients, are the first to go. Seventy-five percent of patients have these organs removed.

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Blood, donor drive to benefit girl with sickle cell anemia

Nonsurgical pain management for joint arthritis, such as in the knee, shoulder or hip, has so far consisted predominantly of pain suppressing medicines. This usually entails steroid injections, topical analgesic creams and medications by mouth such as anti-inflammatory medications. What has really been necessary, though, is a treatment that truly alters the underlying problem.

Stem Cells are like a blank slate and can differentiate into all types of cells for regeneration.

Regenerative medicine provides the opportunity for a real cure with stem cells, platelet rich plasma and growth factors to heal damage. One of the foremost procedures at TeleHealth Medical Group that continues to increase in popularity is bone marrow derived stem cell injections. A persons own bone marrow contains a substantial amount of the stem cells and additional biologic materials necessary for regeneration, with the added benefit of being low risk and outpatient.

What are bone marrow derived stem cell injections?

The main reason that stem cells are used as therapy for arthritis and other conditions that experience joint pain is that they maintain regenerative properties with the potential to repair and reverse damaged joints.

Bone marrow is a spongy tissue contained inside ones bones, and makes cells that are crucial to existence including platelets, white blood cells and red blood cells. All of these cells start in the marrow as stem cells, which are basically a blank slate type of cell. With a blank slate, the cell can then turn into many different types of cells needed in the body including cartilage, tendon or muscle. There are three types of adult stem cells in the human body. The first type of stem cell turns into blood components, with a second destined to become lining of the endometrium.

The third, and most important for musculoskeletal regenerative medicine, are mesenchymal stem cells found in bone marrow. They have been used in animal models to regenerate cartilage and in human models to regenerate bone. (Centeno et al, 2008)

The largest and easiest sources of stem cells for concentrated amounts of bone marrow are in the iliac crest of the hip and the bones of the spine. For the easiest process at TeleHealth, the iliac crest is used for the procedures in an outpatient setting.

Harvesting bone marrow from the iliac crest hip bone.

How are these injections performed?

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Bone Marrow Stem Cell Injections, Mesenchymal Stem Cell ...

The bone marrow and stem cell transplant program at the Siteman Cancer Center is one of the largest in the world, completing nearly 500 transplants each year and more than 5,000 since 1982. The program has performed unrelated donor transplants since 1992.

Our physicians use the latest clinical techniques and resources to collect stem cells or peripheral blood for allogeneic transplants, in which transplanted cells come from siblings and unrelated donors. By manipulating stem cell grafts, they also are working to reduce tumor contamination and bolster immunity. Whenever it is appropriate, they recommend that patients participate inclinical trials, research studies that test whether new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer are safe and effective.

At any given time, Siteman offers more than 40 therapeutic clinical trials for patients with leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma and related disorders, including studies that incorporate transplant. Our large patient population allows us to offer single-institution studies and provides us with access to a wide range of tissue samples for future study.

In recent years, Siteman physicians have conducted clinical studies that led to the approval of the drug plerixafor to mobilize, or harvest, stem cells for transplant in patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and multiple myeloma. They participated in studies that showed decitabine and high-dose lenalidomide were effective treatments for elderly patients with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). And they were the first to use a novel suicide gene for gene therapy to control graft-versus-host disease, a serious complication of transplantation.

Dedicated facilities include a 26-bed unit for patients undergoing transplant, which offers eight ICU beds and special HEPA filtration systems to reduce the risk of infection and a second unit for transplant patients and those with blood-related cancers, currently licensed for 38 beds.

Our program has long been an active member of theNational Marrow Donor Program, International Bone Marrow Transplant Registry, North American Bone Marrow Transplant Registry, Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network and Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB) Transplant Consortium.

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Bone Marrow Transplant and Stem Cell Transplant Program ...

Using stem cells from blood, researchers have been able to grow blood vessels in a week.REUTERS

Researchers at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Sweden have been successful in transplanting blood vessels made from three spoons of blood.

Two years ago two patients at the hospital received the blood vessels made from stem cellsin the blood.

Earlier, another patient too was treated using blood vessels made by her stem cells but in that case, the researchers had to drill into the bone marrow to obtain the stem cells.

In the later cases, all they needed was three spoons of the patient's blood and a waiting period of a week.

The children did not have the vein that goes from the gastrointestinal tract to the liver. This was rectified using the new blood vessels, a treatment that holds out promise for people with varicose veins and myocardial infarction.

The method also rules out rejection normally accompanying any foreign body transplant.

Professors Olausson and Sumitran-Holgersson have treated three patients so far. Two of the three patients are still doing well and have veins that are functioning well.

They now hope to be able to grow complete organs to overcome organ shortage from donors.

Use of embryonic stem cells to treat macular dystrophy and degeneration has been proven to be safewith low rejection rates.

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Blood Vessels Made from Three Spoons of Blood in a Week's Time

Bone Marrow-Derived Stem Cell Prolotherapy
Stem Cell Prolotherapy is a procedure in which adult mesenchymal stem cells are transplanted directly into the damaged tissue or injury and promotes healing....

By: Kab S. Hong M.D.

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Bone Marrow-Derived Stem Cell Prolotherapy - Video

While megakaryocytes are best known for producing platelets that heal wounds, these "mega" cells found in bone marrow also play a critical role in regulating stem cells according to new research from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. In fact, hematopoietic stem cells differentiate to generate megakaryocytes in bone marrow. The Stowers study is the first to show that hematopoietic stem cells (the parent cells) can be directly controlled by their own progeny (megakaryocytes).

The findings from the lab of Stowers Investigator Linheng Li, Ph.D., described in the Oct. 19 issue of the journal Nature Medicine, could cause researchers to rethink what they know about the workings of megakaryocytes and potentially lead to new treatments for patients recovering from chemotherapy or organ transplantation.

"Our results suggest that megakaryocytes might be used clinically to facilitate adult stem cell regeneration and to expand cultured cells for adult stem cell transplants," says Meng Zhao, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at Stowers and lead author on the study. Stowers researchers discovered that megakaryocytes directly regulate the function of murine hematopoietic stem cells -- adult stem cells that form blood and immune cells and that constantly renew the body's blood supply. These cells can also develop into all types of blood cells, including white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets.

Because of their remarkable ability to renew themselves and differentiate into other cells, hematopoietic stems cells are the focus of intense research and have been used to treat many diseases and conditions. The transplantation of isolated human hematopoietic stem cells is used in the treatment of anemia, immune deficiencies and other diseases, including cancer.

Basic research has centered on identifying and characterizing hematopoietic stem cells, however, it is still not clear how hematopoietic stem cells actually work, and how they are regulated because of the complexity of the bone marrow microenvironment. Zhao and his colleagues discovered that as a terminally differentiated progeny, megakaryocytes regulate hematopoietic stem cells by performing two previously unknown functions.

"Megakaryocytes can directly regulate the amount of hematopoietic stem cells by telling the cells when they need to keep in the quiescent stage, and when they need to start proliferating to meet increased demand." Maintaining that delicate balance is important, he adds. "You don't want to have too many or too few hematopoietic stem cells."

These findings are supported by similar research from the laboratory of Paul S. Frenette, Ph.D., at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, also reported in the Oct. 19 issue of Nature Medicine.

Employing the advanced technology of the Institute's Cytometry, Imaging and Histology centers, the researchers examined the relationship between megakaryocytes and hematopoietic stem cells in mouse bone marrow. In the course of their research, they found that the protein transforming growth factor B1 (TGF-B1), contained in megakaryocytes, signaled quiescence of hematopoietic stem cells. They also found that when under stress from chemotherapy, megakaryocytes signaled fibroblast growth factor 1 (FGF1), to stimulate the proliferation of hematopoietic stem cells.

"Our findings suggest that megakaryocytes are required for the recovery of hematopoietic stem cells post chemotherapy," explains Li. The discovery could provide insight for using megakaryocyte-derived factors, such as TGF-B1 and FGF1, clinically to facilitate regeneration of hematopoietic stem cells, he adds.

Engineering a megakaryocyte niche (a special environment in which stem cells live and renew) that supports the growth of hematopoietic stem cells in culture, is the next step for the researchers. Zhao and his colleagues are also investigating whether a megakaryocyte niche can be used to help expand human hematopoietic stem cells in vitro and stem cell transplantation for patients.

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'Mega' cells control growth of blood-producing cells

Aarkstore -Stem Cell Research in Cardiology
This market insight report on Stem Cell Research in Cardiology emphasizes on the market for stem cells in Cardiology. The study is segmented by Source (Allogenic and Autogenic) and by Type...

By: sangam Jain

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Aarkstore -Stem Cell Research in Cardiology - Video

There are myriad complex cultural and religious reasons as to why ethnic minority donor rates are so low. We dont fully understand the reasons but this has to change if more lives are to be saved, says Dr Adnan Sharif, a consultant nephrologist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham and member of the National Black, Asian and minority ethnic Transplant Association (NBTA). Aneesas case is heartbreaking, but unfortunately it is not isolated. There are simply not enough minority ethnic communities donating.

In August 2012, Aneesa the eldest of three siblings who live in Birmingham with their father Manzoor, 46, a purchasing manager for a car company, and mother Resiat, 46, a primary school teacher started suffering from headaches and feeling lethargic. The following month, her GP took a blood test that revealed Aneesas platelet count platelets help blood to clot was critically low, leaving her at risk of excessive bruising and bleeding.

Aneesa was rushed to the citys Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where, two days later, she was diagnosed with aplastic anaemia after further blood tests and a bone marrow biopsy. A potentially fatal disease of the bone marrow, it affects around two people per million and is caused by a deficiency of all three blood cell types red and white blood cells, and platelets. Symptoms include fatigue and a reduced immune system, which can lead to infection and bleeding.

Blood transfusions are the best treatment for serious cases such as Aneesas, and a bone marrow transplant in which a donors healthy stem cells are injected into the patient the only cure. I felt shocked and isolated, recalls Aneesa of her diagnosis. There was no history of the condition in my family and no reason given as to why I had developed it.

She immediately had a 14-hour blood transfusion, and remained in hospital for a month to have further platelet transfusions every three days. Meanwhile, Aneesas brother Eghshaam, 18, and sister Iyla-Rose, six, were tested to see if they could be donors. For bone marrow stem cell transplants to succeed, there needs to be a close match in tissue type between donor and patient.

When it transpired that her siblings tissue types were less than a 50 per cent match, Aneesa was forced to abandon her studies because of her failing health and she was put on the organ donor list.

My doctor warned me there was a shortage of ethnic minority donors, she says. I was surprised. I naively assumed everybody who needed a donor would find one.

By the end of 2012, Aneesa had developed liver and kidney failure a side effect of the anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive pills she had to take to protect her immune system. I had to have two litres of fluid injected through a drip every day to stop me dehydrating, she says. I grew jealous of friends leading normal lives.

Last January, Aneesas doctors widened their search to include the international bone marrow donor registry, which contains 10 million people. But, unfortunately, the lack of BAME donors is a global problem.

Although the majority of religious leaders have issued statements of support for organ donation, many Muslims still believe that to donate would contravene their religion. There are certain aspects of the Islamic faith such as the emphasis put on the respect of the dead and not defacing the body that suggest you shouldnt donate, explains Dr Sharif. He says that even though bone marrow donation a relatively simple procedure compared with other organ transplants doesnt require the death of the donor, it is viewed with similar suspicion.

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Bone-marrow transplant teenager: 'I feel angry that my community let me down'

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Newswise Kansas City, Mo. - While megakaryocytes are best known for producing platelets that heal wounds, these mega cells found in bone marrow also play a critical role in regulating stem cells according to new research from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. In fact, hematopoietic stem cells differentiate to generate megakaryocytes in bone marrow. The Stowers study is the first to show that hematopoietic stem cells (the parent cells) can be directly controlled by their own progeny (megakaryocytes).

The findings from the lab of Stowers Investigator Linheng Li, Ph.D., described in the Oct. 19 issue of the journal Nature Medicine, could cause researchers to rethink what they know about the workings of megakaryocytes and potentially lead to new treatments for patients recovering from chemotherapy or organ transplantation.

Our results suggest that megakaryocytes might be used clinically to facilitate adult stem cell regeneration and to expand cultured cells for adult stem cell transplants, says Meng Zhao, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at Stowers and lead author on the study. Stowers researchers discovered that megakaryocytes directly regulate the function of murine hematopoietic stem cellsadult stem cells that form blood and immune cells and that constantly renew the bodys blood supply. These cells can also develop into all types of blood cells, including white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets.

Because of their remarkable ability to renew themselves and differentiate into other cells, hematopoietic stems cells are the focus of intense research and have been used to treat many diseases and conditions. The transplantation of isolated human hematopoietic stem cells is used in the treatment of anemia, immune deficiencies and other diseases, including cancer.

Basic research has centered on identifying and characterizing hematopoietic stem cells, however, it is still not clear how hematopoietic stem cells actually work, and how they are regulated because of the complexity of the bone marrow microenvironment. Zhao and his colleagues discovered that as a terminally differentiated progeny, megakaryocytes regulate hematopoietic stem cells by performing two previously unknown functions.

Megakaryocytes can directly regulate the amount of hematopoietic stem cells by telling the cells when they need to keep in the quiescent stage, and when they need to start proliferating to meet increased demand. Maintaining that delicate balance is important, he adds. You dont want to have too many or too few hematopoietic stem cells.

These findings are supported by similar research from the laboratory of Paul S. Frenette, Ph.D., at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, also reported in the Oct. 19 issue of Nature Medicine.

Employing the advanced technology of the Institutes Cytometry, Imaging and Histology centers, the researchers examined the relationship between megakaryocytes and hematopoietic stem cells in mouse bone marrow. In the course of their research, they found that the protein transforming growth factor B1 (TGF-B1), contained in megakaryocytes, signaled quiescence of hematopoietic stem cells. They also found that when under stress from chemotherapy, megakaryocytes signaled fibroblast growth factor 1 (FGF1), to stimulate the proliferation of hematopoietic stem cells.

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New Insight That "Mega" Cells Control the Growth of Blood-Producing Cells

A HEALTHCARE worker at Royal Bournemouth Hospital has donated stem cells in a bid to save the life of an unknown man.

Claire Waugh, pictured, who has always been a regular blood donor, decided to join the Anthony Nolan stem cell register after her father was diagnosed with prostate cancer three years ago.

The healthcare assistant co-ordinator was later identified as a possible match for a man needing life-saving treatment.

Following rigorous testing Claire was visited by nurses from the blood cancer charity, who gave her three injections every day for three days to stimulate her bone marrow to produce stem cells.

On the fourth day she travelled to Kings College Hospital in London to receive a final set of injections and undergo a stem cell collection in a simple five-hour outpatient procedure, which is similar to giving blood.

Claire said: I couldnt move or bend my arm due to the fairly heavy duty needle, but I was looked after really well so in the end the time went very quickly.

After donating, Claires stem cells were rushed to the recipient within the required 72 hours. A volunteer from Anthony Nolan told me that if he doesnt survive, there is nothing else on this earth that would have cured him, so this was this persons last chance, added Claire.

When my dad was poorly it made me think that if he needed this kind of help, I would be praying every night that someone would help him.

By doing this, it meant that I could give that chance to someone else and their family.

Royal Bournemouth Hospital granted special leave to Claire for the donation with the charity covering all of her and her husbands travel expenses.

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My stem cells could help save the life of man Ive never met

Knee arthritis 7 months after bone marrow stem cell therapy by Harry Adelson, N.D.
Carolyn describes her outcome seven months after bone marrow stem cell therapy for her arthritic knee pain http://www.docereclinics.com.

By: Harry Adelson, N.D.

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Knee arthritis 7 months after bone marrow stem cell therapy by Harry Adelson, N.D. - Video

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

13-Oct-2014

Contact: Robert Miranda cogcomm@aol.com Cell Transplantation Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair

Putnam Valley, NY. (Oct. 13, 2014) Two studies recently published in Cell Transplantation reveal that cell transplantation may be an effective treatment for spinal cord injury (SCI), a major cause of disability and paralysis with no current restorative therapies.

Using laboratory rats modeled with SCI, researchers in Spain found in laboratory tests on cells harvested from rats - specifically ependymal progenitor cells (epSPCs), multipotent stem cells found in adult tissues surrounding the ependymal canal of the spinal cord - responded to a variety of compounds through the activation of purinergic receptors P2X4, P2X7, P2Y1 and P2Y4. In addition, the epSPCs responded to adenosine triphosphate (ATP) through this activation. ATP, a chemical produced by a wide variety of enzymes that works to transport energy within cells, is known to accumulate at the sites of spinal cord injury and cooperate with growth factors that induce remodeling and repair.

"The aim of our study was to analyze the expression profile of receptors in ependymal-derived neurospheres and to determine which receptors were functional by analysis of intercellular Ca2+ concentration," said study co-author Dr. Rosa Gomez-Villafuertes of the Department of Biochemistry at the Veterinary School at the University of Complutense in Madrid, Spain. "We demonstrated for the first time that epSPCs express functional ionotropic P2X4 and P2X7 and metabotropic P2Y1 and P2Y4 receptors that are able to respond to ATP, ADP and other nucleotide compounds."

When they compared the epSPCs from healthy rats to epSPCs from rats modeled with SCI, they found that a downregulation of P2Y1 and an upregulation of P2Y4 had occurred in the epSPCs in the SCI group.

"This finding opens an important avenue for potential therapeutic alternatives in SCI treatments based on purinergic receptor modulation," the researchers concluded.

###

The study will be published in a future issue of Cell Transplantation and is currently freely available on-line as an unedited early e-pub at: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct/pre-prints/content-CT-1257_Gomez_Villafuertes.

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Spinal cord injury victims may benefit from stem cell transplantation studies

Updated: 10/12/2014 4:19 PM Created: 10/11/2014 11:51 PM WNYT.com By: Steve Flamisch

LOUDONVILLE Four years ago, Doris Calderon was diagnosed with a form of blood cancer called Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS). Doctors told her she needed a bone marrow transplant.

"They were looking for a donor because I had no siblings that could match, and my children are not a good match," said Calderon, of Halfmoon. "We didn't have anybody, so we just figured we'd wait."

More than 800 miles away, in Illinois, a total stranger made a fateful decision later that year. Chad LaMont wanted to donate blood to at his employers "Good Deed Day," but his iron was too low.

LaMont went over to the "Be The Match" table and signed up to be a marrow donor, instead. He turned out to be the match for Calderon, later donating the stem cells and T-cells that saved her life.

"Ive encouraged so many people to get on the list because you never know who you can save, and whose life you can change at the end of the day," LaMont said.

On Friday, Calderon and LaMont met for the first time at Albany International Airport. On Saturday, they took part in the Light the Night Walk at Siena College, raising money to fight blood cancer.

"To have the man responsible for saving my mother's life with us on such a momentous occasion is just such a blessing," said Calderons daughter, Lisa Calderon-Haun. "He couldn't be more wonderful."

Calderon has been in remission for more than two years and her prognosis is good. To learn more about how to become a bone marrow donor, visit "Be The Match."

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Saratoga Co. woman meets marrow donor who saved her life

MADISON Winning the State Cow of the Year award at the 2014 World Dairy Expo on Oct. 3 was only the second biggest thing that happened while the Peterson family of Cashton was in Madison that week.

The most important came a few days later, on the west side of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, when stem cells from Kurt Petersons bone marrow began flowing into the blood stream of his brother, giving Scot Peterson, 45, a new immune system and a good shot of beating adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

Hes a man of few words, says Scot, of his younger brother, Kurt, 40. But you know he really loves you to do something like this.

Its been a good news/bad news kind of a year for the Peterson brothers, who co-own the Coulee Crest farm in the rolling hills of Monroe County, and the states queen of cows, Coulee Crest Nick Lorilyn. Guernseys are the caramel brown and white cows known for the richness of their milk. And Lorilynn won the crown because she, her mother, and one of her daughters have each produced 40,000 pounds of milk in a year.

The last weekend in June, the National Guernsey Association held its national convention in La Crosse. The Petersons hosted a tour of their farm and a dinner event for 475 convention goers at their farm.

Scot Peterson, a burly guy who competed in Sweden for the world tug-of-war championship when he was younger, felt pains in his legs, odd bruises, and general exhaustion.

I thought I was tired from all the work of getting the farm ready, Scot Peterson says. He got through the convention and the national sale on June 30. That was another high point for the farm, with one of Lorilyns daughters topping the sale at $19,000.

By the next day, there was bad news.

By the middle of the day on July 1, I was in the hospital, finding out my diagnosis of leukemia, he recalls.

His oncologist, Dr. Wayne Bottner of Gundersen Health System in La Crosse, told Scot that he had a type of leukemia, ALL, in which the bone marrow makes too many lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell. ALL is more common and easier to treat in children. Adults fare better if they can find a match that allows them to have a stem cell transplant from a donors bone marrow. So Bottner referred Peterson to the UW Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center in Madison.

Originally posted here:
Cashton man goes from winning state award to battling cancer

October 8, 2014

Image Caption: New genetic barcoding technology allows scientists to identify differences in origin between individual blood cells. Credit: Camargo Lab

Provided by Joseph Caputo, Harvard University

New technology that tracks the origin of blood cells challenges scientific dogma

A 7-year-project to develop a barcoding and tracking system for tissue stem cells has revealed previously unrecognized features of normal blood production: New data from Harvard Stem Cell Institute scientists at Boston Childrens Hospital suggests, surprisingly, that the billions of blood cells that we produce each day are made not by blood stem cells, but rather their less pluripotent descendants, called progenitor cells. The researchers hypothesize that blood comes from stable populations of different long-lived progenitor cells that are responsible for giving rise to specific blood cell types, while blood stem cells likely act as essential reserves.

The work, supported by a National Institutes of Health Directors New Innovator Award and published in Nature, suggests that progenitor cells could potentially be just as valuable as blood stem cells for blood regeneration therapies.

This new research challenges what textbooks have long read: That blood stem cells maintain the day-to-day renewal of blood, a conclusion drawn from their importance in re-establishing blood cell populations after bone marrow transplantsa fact that still remains true. But because of a lack of tools to study how blood forms in a normal context, nobody had been able to track the origin of blood cells without doing a transplant.

Boston Childrens Hospital scientist Fernando Camargo, PhD, and his postdoctoral fellow Jianlong Sun, PhD, addressed this problem with a tool that generates a unique barcode in the DNA of all blood stem cells and their progenitor cells in a mouse. When a tagged cell divides, all of its descendant cells possess the same barcode. This biological inventory system makes it possible to determine the number of stem cells/progenitors being used to make blood and how long they live, as well as answer fundamental questions about where individual blood cells come from.

Theres never been such a robust experimental method that could allow people to look at lineage relationships between mature cell types in the body without doing transplantation, Sun said. One of the major directions we can now go is to revisit the entire blood cell hierarchy and see how the current knowledge holds true when we use this internal labeling system.

People have tried using viruses to tag blood cells in the past, but the cells needed to be taken out of the body, infected, and re-transplanted, which raised a number of issues, said Camargo, who is a member of Childrens Stem Cell Program and an associate professor in Harvard Universitys Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology. I wanted to figure out a way to label blood cells inside of the body, and the best idea I had was to use mobile genetic elements called transposons.

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Scientists Develop Barcoding Tool For Stem Cells

A combined LifeSource blood drive and Be The Match bone marrow registry event will honor two local women battling different forms of leukemia from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 11, at The Society of Danube Swabians, 625 E. Seegers Road, Des Plaines.

The event will co-honor Des Plaines resident Amy Charewicz, 24, and Prospect Heights resident Anni Mayer, who is a Society of Danube Swabians board member. Mayer, a St. Alphonsus Ligouri parishioner and national society youth group leader, has Myelodyplastic Syndrome, a blood cancer that prevents her bone marrow from making enough healthy blood cells. Charewicz has aggressive Acute Myeloblastic Leukemia, a disease that causes her bone marrow to produce abnormal white and red blood cells, as well as platelets.

The Northern Illinois University graduate will receive a stem cell transplant Thursday from a 23-year-old man located by Be the Match at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. "Amy has been fortunate to have what she needs available because others have donated and registered," says Doris Charewicz, her mother. "She wants to 'pay it forward' by increasing awareness of the need for both blood donors and stem cell donors."

Be The Match registrants are limited to ages 18-44 and don't need to preregister. Blood donor walk-ins are welcome, but appointments are preferred at (877) 543-3768 or http://www.lifesource.org using code 650B.

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Bone marrow registry drive Saturday in Des Plaines

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The family of brave toddler Margot Martini launched a new bone marrow donor appeal this morning exactly a year after she was diagnosed with leukaemia.

Her relatives said the first Team Margot Stem Cell and Bone Marrow Awareness Day would be held in another 12 months, on Wednesday October 7, 2015.

The two-year-old underwent a bone marrow transplant in February after her dad, Yaser, from Essington, and mum Vicki launched a desperate appeal for help.

Margot Martini with mum Vicky

But she relapsed and her parents decided to end her treatment after being told her chances of survival were less than one per cent.

The awareness day is designed to promote awareness around the need for more potential stem cell donors to join the UK and worldwide registries.

Her family said they hoped mixed race people would sign up to plug a gaping hole on the lists.

Just sixty per cent of the 37,000 patients needing a stem cell donor worldwide receives a perfect match.

But that figure plunges to barely 20 per cent for those from black, Asian or ethnic minority communities.

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Family of Margot Martini launch new stem cell and bone marrow appeal

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

6-Oct-2014

Contact: Sarah McDonnell s_mcd@mit.edu 617-253-8923 Massachusetts Institute of Technology @MITnews

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Deep within the bone marrow resides a type of cells known as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). These immature cells can differentiate into cells that produce bone, cartilage, fat, or muscle a trait that scientists have tried to exploit for tissue repair.

In a new study that should make it easier to develop such stem-cell-based therapies, a team of researchers from MIT and the Singapore-MIT Alliance in Research and Technology (SMART) has identified three physical characteristics of MSCs that can distinguish them from other immature cells found in the bone marrow. Based on this information, they plan to create devices that could rapidly isolate MSCs, making it easier to generate enough stem cells to treat patients.

Until now, there has been no good way to separate MSCs from bone marrow cells that have already begun to differentiate into other cell types, but share the same molecules on the cell surface. This may be one reason why research results vary among labs, and why stem-cell treatments now in clinical trials are not as effective as they could be, says Krystyn Van Vliet, an MIT associate professor of materials science and engineering and biological engineering and a senior author of the paper, which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week.

"Some of the cells that you're putting in and calling stem cells are producing a beneficial therapeutic outcome, but many of the cells that you're putting in are not," Van Vliet says. "Our approach provides a way to purify or highly enrich for the stem cells in that population. You can now find the needles in the haystack and use them for human therapy."

Lead authors of the paper are W.C. Lee, a former graduate student at the National University of Singapore and SMART, and Hui Shi, a former SMART postdoc. Other authors are Jongyoon Han, an MIT professor of electrical engineering and biological engineering, SMART researchers Zhiyong Poon, L.M. Nyan, and Tanwi Kaushik, and National University of Singapore faculty members G.V. Shivashankar, J.K.Y. Chan, and C.T. Lim.

Physical markers

MSCs make up only a small percentage of cells in the bone marrow. Other immature cells found there include osteogenic cells, which have already begun the developmental path toward becoming cartilage- or bone-producing cells. Currently, researchers try to isolate MSCs based on protein markers found on the cell surfaces. However, these markers are not specific to MSCs and can also yield other types of immature cells that are more differentiated.

Excerpt from:
New technique allows scientists to find rare stem cells within bone marrow

By Jon Cohen October 6 at 5:00 PM

Researchers are closer to unraveling the mystery of how Timothy Ray Brown, the only human cured of HIV, defeated the virus, according to a new study. Although the work doesnt provide a definitive answer, it rules out one possible explanation.

Brown remains one of the most studied cases in the HIV epidemics history. In 2006, after living with the virus for 11 years and controlling his infection with antiretroviral drugs, he learned that he had developed acute myeloid leukemia. (The leukemia has no known relationship to HIV infection or treatment.) Chemotherapy failed, and the next year Brown received the first of two bone marrow transplants a common treatment for this cancer and ditched his antiretrovirals. (An American then living in Berlin, Brown has been known to researchers for years as the Berlin patient.

When HIV-infected people stop taking these drugs, levels of HIV typically skyrocket within weeks. Yet researchers scouring Browns blood over the past seven years have found only traces of the viral genetic material, none of which can replicate.

Today, researchers point to three factors that might independently or in combination have ridden Browns body of HIV. The first is the process of conditioning, in which doctors destroyed Browns immune system with chemotherapy and whole-body irradiation to prepare him for his bone marrow transplant.

Second, his oncologist, Gero Htter, took an extra step that he thought might not only cure the leukemia but also help rid Browns body of HIV. He found a bone marrow donor who had a rare mutation in a gene that cripples a key receptor on white blood cells that the virus uses to establish an infection.

The third possible explanation is that Browns new immune system attacked remnants of his old one that held HIV-infected cells, a process known as graft vs. host disease.

In the new study, a team led by immunologist Guido Silvestri of Emory University in Atlanta designed an unusual monkey experiment to test these possibilities.

Bone marrow transplants work because of stem cells. Modern techniques avoid actually aspirating bone marrow and instead can sift through blood and pluck out the stem cells needed for a transplant to engraft. So the researchers first drew blood from three rhesus macaque monkeys, removed stem cells and put the cells in storage. They then infected these animals and three control monkeys with a hybrid virus, known as SHIV, that contains parts of the simian and human AIDS viruses. All six animals soon began receiving antiretroviral drugs, and SHIV levels in the blood quickly dropped below the level of detection on standard tests, as expected.

A few months later, the three monkeys with stored stem cells underwent whole-body irradiation to condition their bodies and then had their own stem cells reinfused. After the cells engrafted, a process that took a few more months, the researchers stopped antiretrovirals in the three animals and in the three controls. SHIV quickly came screaming back in the three controls and two of the transplanted animals. (One of the transplanted monkeys did not have the virus rebound, but its kidneys failed and the researchers euthanized it.)

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How did the Berlin patient become cured of HIV?

Published: Sat, October 4, 2014 @ 12:09 a.m.

By EMMALEE C. TORISK

etorisk@vindy.com

STRUTHERS

Missy Ginnetti began to tear up as she re-read a typed letter from her bone-marrow donor.

Sitting at her kitchen table, with her husband, Mahoning County Engineer Pat Ginnetti, across from her, Missy explained that she doesnt know anything specific a name, an occupation, a city of residence about her donor. In fact, any bits of potentially revealing information, no matter how seemingly minute or insignificant, were blacked out of the letter.

What wasnt, however, was her donors closing: Sincerely, The other part of your marrow.

I wrote back, Dear All of my marrow, Missy said, laughing.

Its true. Within 30 days of her allogeneic stem-cell transplant in late March, Missys body had accepted 100 percent of the donor cells something that often doesnt happen for up to a year afterward.

Now, more than four years after Missys initial diagnosis of stage 3 Hodgkin lymphoma, life for the Ginnettis is beginning to move closer to normal once again. The next big thing, she said, is undergoing tests and scans within the next couple of weeks that will reveal whether cancer cells [are] showing up anywhere.

Excerpt from:
Unknown donor helps Struthers woman through cancer battle