Bone Marrow Transplant News and Research

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Researchers show how a new drug speeds tissue regeneration in animal models

The concept sounds like the stuff of science fiction: take a pill, and suddenly new tissues grow to replace damaged ones. Researchers at Case Western Reserve and UT Southwestern Medical Center this week announced that they have taken significant steps toward turning this once-improbable idea into a vivid reality.

12 Jun 2015

US cancer physicians explore new approach to help older patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplant

When stem cell transplant first became part of standard treatment for certain cancers and blood diseases twenty years ago, individuals older than 60 were rarely considered for the procedure.

10 Jun 2015

Massey researchers aim to develop models that can predict complications from stem cell transplantation

Researchers at VCU Massey Cancer Center's Bone Marrow Transplant Program have recently published findings from a phase 2 clinical trial that demonstrate lymphocyte recovery in related and unrelated stem cell transplant recipients generally falls into three patterns that are significantly associated with survival.

10 Jun 2015

Maintenance therapy with lenalidomide benefits patients with multiple myeloma

A large cooperative-group study directed by the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology has confirmed previous evidence that the drug lenalidomide delays time to disease progression for patients with multiple myeloma and is an important treatment option for patients with this rare but increasingly common cancer of the blood and marrow.

2 Jun 2015

Immune system plays surprising role in the progression of Rett syndrome

New research by investigators at the University of Massachusetts Medical School suggests the immune system plays an unsuspected and surprising role in the progression of Rett syndrome, a severe neurological disorder affecting children. Immune cells known as macrophages are unable to perform their normal function and are instead amplifying the disease.

11 May 2015

Humanized mouse model may lead to better anti-cancer therapies

Human tumors grown in mouse models have long been used to test promising anti-cancer therapies. However, when a human tumor is transplanted into a mouse, the mouse immune system must be knocked down so that it doesn't attack the foreign tumor tissue, thus allowing the tumor to grow.

27 Apr 2015

UVA research identifies new role of immune system in Rett syndrome

The immune system is designed to protect us from disease. But what if it was malfunctioning? Would it make a disease worse? That appears to be the case with Rett syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder, and possibly in other neurological disorders as well, new research from the University of Virginia School of Medicine has found.

22 Apr 2015

MSK begins CAR T cell clinical trial for children with relapsed or treatment-resistant ALL

Researchers from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center are pioneering a new groundbreaking clinical trial for children and young adults with relapsed or treatment-resistant acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) by using one of the most promising methods of cancer treatment today, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells.

12 Apr 2015

Clinical trial uses personalized cellular therapy to treat GVHD complication of bone marrow transplant

An innovative clinical trial using the science of "personalized" cellular therapy has begun enrolling children and adults suffering from graft-versus-host-disease (GVHD), a life-threatening complication of bone marrow transplantation in which donor immune lymphocytes attack the organs of the bone marrow transplant recipient.

3 Apr 2015

New bone marrow transplant unit launched in Bangalore, India

A bone marrow transplant can mean the difference between life and death for people with blood cancers and related disorders. But many patients in India can't afford the high treatment costs, and for them a transplant is not an option. This is changing thanks to a newly launched bone marrow transplant unit at M.S. Ramaiah Medical College in Bangalore.

19 Mar 2015

Findings reveal variations between countries and regions in use of HSCT procedure

Since the first experimental bone marrow transplant over 50 years ago, more than one million hematopoietic stem cell transplantations (HSCT) have been performed in 75 countries, according to new research charting the remarkable growth in the worldwide use of HSCT, published in The Lancet Haematology journal.

28 Feb 2015

Life-saving bone marrow transplants are not available to all who need them

Bone marrow (hematopoietic stem cell) transplant is a life saving treatment for patients with blood cancer that replaces blood stem cells lost to disease or chemotherapy. However, for each patient to benefit a matching donor must be found to provide the stem cells for transplant.

27 Feb 2015

TKI introduction improves French CML patient survival

Real-world study findings from France show the significant impact tyrosine kinase inhibitor treatment has had on the survival of patients with Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukaemia.

17 Feb 2015

Three Keck Medicine scientists of USC receive $4.3 million from CIRM for stem cell research

Three scientists from Keck Medicine of the University of Southern California have won grants exceeding $4.3 million from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine for research that includes creating a temporary liver for transplant patients, finding novel ways to treat immune disorders and blood diseases and developing a new animal model for exploring diseases like heart failure, diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases.

5 Feb 2015

FDA accepts Sangamo BioSciences' IND for SB-BCLmR-HSPC genome editing approach

Sangamo BioSciences, Inc. announced today that an Investigational New Drug (IND) application for the company's SB-BCLmR-HSPC genome editing approach, which is designed to provide a one-time lasting therapy for beta-thalassemia, has been accepted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is now active.

4 Feb 2015

Anti-viral immune cells could inhibit bone marrow transplant infections caused by CMV

Bone marrow transplantation is a life-saving therapy for patients with blood cancers like leukemia or lymphoma. However, the depletion of the patient's immune system prior to transplantation can put patients at risk of for an infection by a virus called cytomegalovirus (CMV) that can be life threatening in these immune-compromised individuals.

4 Feb 2015

SCCA's Fred Hutch Bone Marrow Transplant Program achieves higher survival rates

The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center Bone Marrow Transplant Program at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance was recently recognized for outperforming its anticipated one-year survival rate for allogeneic transplant patients.

28 Jan 2015

New treatment combinations improve outcomes for vulnerable patient with hard-to-treat disease

New treatment combinations and targeted therapies for lymphoma and multiple myeloma are improving outcomes for vulnerable patient populations with hard-to-treat disease, according to studies presented today at the 56th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition.

7 Dec 2014

Scientists seek to improve stem cell transplant outcomes using DNA sequencing, mathematical modeling

Is the human immune system similar to the weather, a seemingly random yet dynamical system that can be modeled based on past conditions to predict future states? Scientists at VCU Massey Cancer Center's award-winning Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) Program believe it is, and they recently published several studies that support the possibility of using next-generation DNA sequencing and mathematical modeling to not only understand the variability observed in clinical outcomes of stem cell transplantation, but also to provide a theoretical framework to make transplantation a possibility for more patients who do not have a related donor.

5 Dec 2014

Researchers develop standardized, team-based approach to reduce alarm fatigue in hospitals

The sound of monitor alarms in hospitals can save patients' lives, but the frequency with which the monitors go off can also lead to "alarm fatigue," in which caregivers become desensitized to the ubiquitous beeping.

10 Nov 2014