Normal Red Blood Cell (R) Sickle Cell (L)
Another milestone for Adult Stem Cell Therapy, from the National Institutes of Health
Photo: Getty Images
“A modified blood adult stem-cell transplant regimen has effectively reversed sickle cell disease in 9 of 10 adults who had been severely affected by the disease, according to results of a National Institutes of Health study in the Dec. 10 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The trial was conducted at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md., by NIH researchers at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.”
Sickle Cell disease affects mainly Africa-Americans in this country, with about 70,000-80,000 cases existing. Sickle cell afflicts roughly 1 out of every 500 live births in this community.
Because of a structural/biochemical anomaly, when affected red blood cells (rbc’s) lose oxygen, the red blood cells sickle in shape and become sticky, clumping in small blood vessels. A host of complications arise, leading to premature death. More here.
Adult blood stem cells, present in bone marrow, are transplanted into the bones of children whose own marrow has been destroyed using chemotherapy. The child then produces a whole new healthy source of rbc’s, as well as a whole new immune system with no chance at tissue rejection. This can’t be done in adults, who have already suffered too much organ damage.
Adults receive adult stem cells that are matched to their human leukocyte antigens (HLA), the unique identifying proteins on cell surfaces used by the body to determine what is that person’s cell and what is a potential pathogen. The closest HLA matches are family members. Interestingly in these adults treated, there was no sign of tissue rejection, and the disease was effectively reversed in 9 of 10 subjects.
That’s awesome news! No need for embryo-destructive research.
More from the study:
“One of the main obstacles in treating a larger number of African-Americans with sickle cell disease is the relative lack of an available HLA-matched donor. Dr. Tisdale explained, ‘Most white Americans can easily find a matched donor in the unrelated bone marrow or cord blood registries; yet when we screened a number of the people in our trial who were without an HLA-matched sibling donor, we could not find a compatible unrelated donor.'”
Now for some inconvenient truth.
There are ways to increase the available pool of donors in the African-American community.
1. Bank cord blood at birth using medicaid money for mothers who have limited means. It’s cost-effective in the long term.
2. Stop the abortions. African-Americans make up 12% of the population and have 37% of the abortions. This represents an enormous pool of potential donors being selected against every year.
3. With illegitimacy approaching 70% and too many families being comprised of siblings with different fathers, it’s harder to find HLA matches within families. A return to stable family paradigms makes good medical sense as well as good moral sense. Good morality is good medicine.
Adult stem cells continue to steamroll their embryonic counterparts.
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