Nov 28, 2007 1:46 pm US/Mountain
Denver Researchers Break Blood Stem Cell Ground
National Jewish Specialists Discover How To Grow Limitless Supply Of Universal Blood Stem Cells
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A scientist at National Jewish Medical and Research Center works with adult blood stem cells.
CBS
A team of researchers at National Jewish Medical and Research Center are hoping the work they are doing with adult blood stem cells will eventually eliminate the agonizing wait leukemia patients must go through to find matching bone marrow donors.
The team, led by Dr. Yosef Refaeli, discovered in the course of growing pure stem cells in their lab how to grow a limitless supply of universal blood stem cells. The promising discovery could eliminate the current barriers to bone marrow transplants, making them readily available for any patient and minimizing complications.
Bone marrow transplant recipients like Sean Creeden often must wait weeks and sometimes months to find the right donor. Creeden was diagnosed with leukemia in June. He underwent chemotherapy and his siblings were tested to find a bone marrow match. It turned out two of them matched each other, but neither one matched him.
Creeden endured three rounds of chemo before finding an unrelated donor. He is now less than 60 days away from a bone marrow transplant.
"It has been the hardest part," he told CBS4. "You don't know. You just wait and wait. Every day you come in to the doctor's or you talk to the coordinator for the transplant and you're wondering 'Have you heard any more? Did you find a match yet?'"
Refaeli described the blood stem cells his team has been working with as "pretty powerful for things that look so humble." He said when his collaborator, Dr. John Cambier, first asked him to try the tests, he laughed. People have tried for 35 years and failed to make the breakthrough his team has made.
Refaeli went into the research believing he, too, would fail.
"I think this is a once in a lifetime," he said.
Using mice, the scientists have already done successful transplants with the lab grown stem cells.
"I think that probably in the next couple years we will have a prototype that can go into people," Refaeli said.
The National Jewish team is working to make sure the lab-grown stem cells are completely safe. The search is now on for funding to take the promising discovery into clinical trials. The finding has yet to be sent for publication.
It may sound strange, but National Jewish's research has counterterrorism implications. Refaeli brought up the example that if a terrorist were to drop a dirty bomb and 50,000 people suffered radioactive contamination, these findings would have the ability to immediately provide each person with a bone marrow transplant.
For patients like Sean Creeden, they can only hope that current leukemia treatments will be enough to keep them alive.
The current phase of National Jewish Medical and Research Center's research is being funded by a grant from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
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