Category Archives: Stem Cell Transplant

Milton Canadian Champion OneMatch Stem Cell and Marrow Network will come to Country Heritage Park Saturday, Jan. 18 in hopes of adding more people to Canadas stem cell registry in honour of Nora Chifor. Chifor is a 33-year-old woman from Reghin, Romania who was recently diagnosed with leukemia and is in desperate need of a stem cell transplant. Potential donors are invited to provide a swab at the OneMatch booth that will be set up. At the same time, the event itself, which is dubbed United We Move Mountains a Day of Health will include family entertainment organized by Chifors supporters. The 2 p.m. fundraiser for Chifor will feature zumba, crafts, face painting, yoga and salsa. Its intended to be a fun event with plenty of childrens activities. Tickets to the entertainment portion of the days activities cost $15 and are available by calling (647) 202-4224 or (416) 903-2536 or emailing event18@chifornora.com. To register as a potential donor, drop by the event or visit OneMatch online at http://www.onematch.ca. To learn more about Chifor and follow her journey, visit her website, http://www.chifornora.com. Country Heritage Park is located at on 8560 Tremaine Rd. The rest is here: Potential stem cell donors sought … Continue reading →

A piece of a three-dimensional bone structure obtained from the own adipose stem cells of a patient is seen at Brussels' Saint Luc Hospital January 14, 2014. Belgian medical researchers have succeeded in repairing bones using stem cells from fatty tissue, with a new technique they believe could become a benchmark for treating a range of bone disorders. REUTERS BRUSSELS -- Belgian medical researchers have succeeded in repairing bones using stem cells from fatty tissue, with a new technique they believe could become a benchmark for treating a range of bone disorders. The team at the Saint Luc university clinic hospital in Brussels have treated 11 patients, eight of them children, with fractures or bone defects that their bodies could not repair, and a spin-off is seeking investors to commercialize the discovery. Doctors have for years harvested stem cells from bone marrow at the top of the pelvis and injected them back into the body to repair bone. The ground-breaking technique of Saint Luc's centre for tissue and cellular therapy is to remove a sugar cube sized piece of fatty tissue from the patient, a less invasive process than pushing a needle into the pelvis and with a stem cell … Continue reading →

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian medical researchers have succeeded in repairing bones using stem cells from fatty tissue, with a new technique they believe could become a benchmark for treating a range of bone disorders. The team at the Saint Luc university clinic hospital in Brussels have treated 11 patients, eight of them children, with fractures or bone defects that their bodies could not repair, and a spin-off is seeking investors to commercialize the discovery. Doctors have for years harvested stem cells from bone marrow at the top of the pelvis and injected them back into the body to repair bone. The ground-breaking stem cell technique of Saint Luc's centre for tissue and cellular therapy is to remove a sugar cube sized piece of fatty tissue from the patient, a less invasive process than pushing a needle into the pelvis and with a stem cell concentration they say is some 500 times higher. The stem cells are then isolated and used to grow bone in the laboratory. Unlike some technologies, they are also not attached to a solid and separate 'scaffold'. "Normally you transplant only cells and you cross your fingers that it functions," the centre's coordinator Denis Dufrane told Reuters … Continue reading →

Durham, NC (PRWEB) January 14, 2014 A new study released in STEM CELLS Translational Medicine indicates that stem cells can be effective in treating a debilitating and sometimes lethal genetic disorder called brittle bone disease. Brittle bone disease, or osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), is characterized by fragile bones causing some patients to suffer hundreds of fractures over the course of a lifetime. In addition, according to the OI Foundation, other symptoms include muscle weakness, hearing loss, fatigue, joint laxity, curved bones, scoliosis, brittle teeth and short stature. Restrictive pulmonary disease occurs in the more severe cases. Currently there is no cure. OI can be detected prenatally by ultrasound. In the study reported on in STEM CELLS Translational Medicine, an international team of researchers treated two patients for the disease using mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) while the infants were still in the womb, followed by stem cell boosts after they were born. We had previously reported on the prenatal transplantation for the patient with OI type III, which is the most severe form in children who survive the neonatal period, said Cecilia Gtherstrm, Ph.D., of the Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden. She and Jerry Chan, M.D., Ph.D., of the … Continue reading →

Ottawa teen needed stem cell transplant to save his life. You can help. Daniel Stanton of Ottawa needed a cord stem cell transplant at age 6 to save his life. It's nine years later and he's alive and healthy. Daniel, 15, is speak... By: 18882DONATE … Continue reading →

Fareham Leisure Centre holding bone marrow donor day after colleague Chris Spencer diagnosed with leukaemia 4:00pm Saturday 11th January 2014 in News By Julian Robinson, Eastleigh Chief Reporter STAFF at a Hampshire leisure centre are holding a stem cell recruitment day to support one of their colleagues. Workers at Fareham Leisure centre want potentially life-saving bone marrow donors to drop in on Wednesday. The initiative comes after one of their colleagues, Chris Spencer, recently underwent a bone marrow transplant through the Anthony Nolan stem cell charity after being diagnosed with leukaemia in June 2013. Participants need to be aged between 16 and 30 and be in good health to become a donor. General manager Ryan Grant said: Were thrilled to be hosting a recruitment day to raise awareness and help support Anthony Nolans invaluable work. For thousands of people with blood cancers such as leukaemia, their only hope of survival is a donation of healthy stem cells. Were giving the public the opportunity to see whether theyre a match. The event runs from 4.30pm to 8pm at Fareham Leisure Centre. Call 01329 233652 for more information. See the rest here: Leisure centre's plea for donors after colleague diagnosed with leukaemia … Continue reading →

CTVNews.ca Staff Published Friday, January 10, 2014 4:33PM EST Last Updated Friday, January 10, 2014 11:42PM EST A team of doctors at the University of Calgary has, for the first time in North America, successfully performed a stem cell transplant in a spinal cord injury patient, a procedure that could offer a glimmer of hope to patients whose injuries have long been considered untreatable. The doctors injected the neural stem cells into the spine of a 29-year-old paraplegic, who will now be monitored to determine whether implanting those cells is safe. Later studies will look at whether it is possible to regenerate new tissue and repair the mans injury. That is the goal, a cure, the University of Calgarys Dr. Steven Casha, who performed the procedure on Wednesday, told CTV News. Stem cells have the potential to recreate lost tissue, he added, although that remains to be proven in humans with spinal cord injuries. The answer, he said, is a long way away. The transplant is part of an ongoing clinical trial being conducted by StemCells Inc., which harvested the stem cells from the nervous system of a fetus. The company holds a patent on the cells. Data from three … Continue reading →

Bone marrow nurtures both red blood cells and white blood cells, with healthy people producing more than 500 billion red- and-white blood cells every day. But when bone marrow is damaged by a disease like leukemia, or by radiation or chemotherapy drugs, the supply of blood cells drops, leaving a person at risk for fatal infections. Leukemia and other types of bone-marrow diseases are often treated by transplanting healthy hematopoietic stem cells, which can develop into various kinds of blood cells, from another person. The donor cells can be taken from another persons bone marrow or bloodstream, or from preserved umbilical cords and placentas. But finding a matching donor can be difficult, and the amount of stem cells harvested from the donor may not always be enough to meet the needs of the patient. One thing that doctors want to be able to do is to find a way to cultivate a bumper crop of stem cells. But blood stem cells thrive in a very specific environment inside bone marrow. And bone marrow has a very complex architecture, like a tiny sponge that contains many sizes of pores, and special docking proteins for stem cells. "We assume that stem cells … Continue reading →

Dr Bs Rajput Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Stem Cell Transplant Surgeon India stem cell india, stem cell therapy india, stem cell in india, stem cell therapy in india, india stem cell, india stem cell therapy, http://www.stemcellindia.... By: Stem Cell India … Continue reading →

North Vancouver resident Hector Walker owes his life to stem cells derived from the umbilical cord blood of a pair of wee strangers. Walker, who is 62 and had leukemia, had no clue where his doctors at Vancouver General Hospital found the donor stem cells for his 2010 transplant. But hes grateful they did and thrilled that finding a match may become less cumbersome now that B.C. Womens Hospital will soon start asking expectant mothers to donate their newborn babies cord blood, a rich and versatile source of potentially healing stem cells. At a news conference today, the biggest maternity hospital in the province will be named as a collection site for the new National Public Cord Blood Bank. It is the second hospital in the country to get that distinction (after Ottawa) and will serve as one of only four collection sites across the country. Finding a bone marrow match was more of a problem for me because Im black. Even my brother wasnt a match, said Walker. Life is so unpredictable. People should understand they can save someones life by doing this. The hospital was designated a collection site because so many babies are delivered there (7,000 annually) … Continue reading →