Bone Marrow Donors Can Be Hard to Find. One Company Is Turning to Cadavers
NEWS | 15 November 2024
Once thawed, Abidi and his team infused the cells into the woman on June 27. A few weeks later, the newly transplanted cells had started to grow and make healthy blood cells—a key milestone. In September, Ossium announced that the transplant had been successful. It was the company’s first attempted deceased donor transplant, and likely the first time a cancer patient had received preserved stem cells from a cadaver. “If her leukemia doesn’t relapse and she doesn’t have very severe complications, this is a curative treatment option for her,” Abidi says. The patient has suffered some expected post-transplant complications, but has since been discharged from the hospital. Doctors continue to monitor her health. Bone marrow is the machinery responsible for making nearly all of the body’s blood cells. Stem cells in the marrow give rise to new blood cells. But if the bone marrow malfunctions, those stem cells can form abnormal blood cells, causing cancer. During a bone marrow transplant, doctors infuse the donor stem cells from the marrow into the recipient’s bloodstream. “These cells are smart enough, they know where to go,” Abidi says. “They travel from the circulation into the bone marrow and then, over a period of time, regenerate and restart the blood production process.” Sometimes siblings are able to be donors, but 70 percent of patients who need a transplant don’t have a donor match in their family. In those cases, doctors in the US turn to unrelated donors who have joined NMDP (formerly the National Marrow Donor Program) or other stem cell registries. Depending on a patient’s ethnic background, the chance of finding a full match through NMDP can vary widely. Black or African American patients face the toughest odds, with just a 29 percent chance of finding a full match, because the registry isn’t diverse enough. Collecting donor stem cells used to require surgically removing marrow from a bone, usually in the hip or sternum, with a needle and syringe. Now, donors can take a drug that releases stem cells from the marrow and sends them to the bloodstream, where the cells can be collected by a machine in a process called apheresis. This has become the preferred way to collect stem cells because it is safer, less painful, and doesn’t require anesthesia. It can also yield more stem cells than the older needle-harvesting method.
Author: Steven Levy. Emily Mullin. Kate Knibbs. Anna Byrne. Matt Reynolds. Leslie Hart. Yasemin Saplakoglu. Stephen Robert Miller. Will Knight. Ritsuko Kawai.
Source