“Latest Stem Cells News”

Italy is ranked among the top countries in Europe for the number of bone marrow transplants performed. This is one of the elements that emerged on the first day of the 3rd GITMO conference (Italian group for bone marrow transplants), which began today in Florence.

Italy plays a leading role for bone marrow transplants, said a statement, demonstrated by the fact that our country is one of the top contributors to the number of transplants performed in Europe. The European Bone Marrow Transplant Group (EMBT) collects and stores data regarding transplants performed in various countries, and Italy is ranked 3rd/4th place for the total number of transplants it performs. This is an indication of the important work performed in Italy by GITMO and demonstrates that Italian transplant centers make use of top-level expertise and technology.

This is encouraging data because it opens up possibilities for the future, with important implications for patients suffering from neoplastic diseases, for which stem cells could play a key role in future treatments.

The procedure of stem cell transplants is very invasive for the patient and not all individuals are able to adequately tolerate the procedure, especially older patients. In the past, it was not possible to perform a transplant in an individual over the age of 40, then the age was raised to 50, while today 60 could be an important objective. In the past 10 years, transplant technologies for family and non-family donors have been developed with the use of so-called reduced intensity transplants, meaning a transplant that uses technology to make the procedure tolerable for patients who are not able to undergo the traditional procedure.

Initially, this technique developed slowly, while today many transplant centers have adopted the procedure, which has substantially increased the number of people who are eligible to receive this type of treatment. For some diseases, like acute myeloid leukemia, donor stem cell transplants represent our most promising weapon, and since these diseases are most common in elderly individuals, in cases where the patient is in good condition and they are under 60 years old, it is possible to use this type of treatment.

Future prospects. Today stem cells can be obtained from various sources. While in the past family donors were used, now the use of non-family donors has become more widespread thanks to international donor banks. Furthermore, alternative sources are available, like umbilical cord stem cells, which have been collected in many EU and non-EU countries for about 15 years in special umbilical cord blood banks. They are also present in Italy and this expands the offer and possibility to quickly find a source of stem cells to be used in transplants.

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The Pisa University Hospital has become part of the international network of hematopoietic stem cell transplant facilities (meaning they produce various blood components). The hospital was recently accredited by the Italian registry of bone marrow donors, which is part of the international network.

Pisa has become an important center for bone marrow collection for all potential donors in northwestern Italy.
On 20 April 2009, the first donation was carried out for a patient at the Udine University Hospital, and a second donation is being organized for a patient being treated at the Montpellier Hospital (France).

The hospital in Pisa received the prestigious recognition thanks to the positive results they have obtained over the past years in the hematology and oncology- hematology units.

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The ‘White Room’ at Meyer pediatric hospital in Florence needs to complete a few more procedures to become completely functional. This stem cell and cellular product ‘factory’ will allow cells to be manipulated for therapies used in bone marrow treatments against leukemia and tumors and in reconstructive medicine to reproduce bone, cartilage, fat, and nervous tissue in metabolic and neurological diseases and treatments for serious autoimmune disorders.

“The certification procedures are very long,” explained the head of transfusions and cellular therapy, Franco Bambi, “because we will be considered a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility, but we are planning to finish the procedures by the end of the year.” The facility is made up of three laboratories, including a quarantine area, a sterilization and decontamination lab, a filter area and as a cryopreservation lab, which will store cells and tissues in containers with liquid nitrogen at -193 degrees. This morning the White Room was given a 300 thousand dollar donation collected from 15,000 Unicoop Florence and Coop members.
The check was delivered this morning by the president of the Unicoop Florence management council Golfredo Biancalani to the president of the Meyer Foundation and the commissioner of pediatrics Tommaso Langiano.

Already 1,500 Coop members have visited the White Room at Meyer after making their donation. Yesterday morning 35 Unicoop sectional presidents were taken on a guided visit by Doctor Franco Bambi together with Regional Health Councilman Enrico Rossi, Meyer President Tommaso Langiano, Unicoop Florence management council president Goffredo Biancalani, and president of the Medical Department at the University of Florence Gianfranco Gensini. “Citizens know that when faced with an important health-care problem, our system is capable of responding,” commented councilman Rossi during the delivery of the check to Meyer by Unicoop Florence. “Initiatives like this one make citizens more involved in their health-care.”

At the event, the ‘Meyermeo’ experimental project for TV and radio for the children at Meyer, done by the students of the Florence art institute and coordinated by director Giovanni Micoli, was also inaugurated.

In the upcoming weeks, all of the hospital rooms will be given multimedia stations, radio ethernet in every room, and areas where videos will be played in playrooms for the children and in the oncohematology unit.
The White Room at Meyer, which should be fully functioning by the end of the year, is already working on several activities. Today, the stem cell manufacturing facility directed by Franco Bimbi received bone marrow from a donor in Honolulu, which was used in a transplant in a child with leukemia.
The marrow arrived to the cellular therapy laboratory through the international donor registry and was requested by Meyer’s oncohematology unit directed by Maurizio Aricò, who currently is treating a patient for leukemia.

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VIPs and stars like Federica Panicucci, Ambra Angiolini, Federica Fontana, Justine Mattera, and many others are increasingly choosing to store their umbilical cord stem cells storage banks outside of the country for a possible future autologous (self) use. This has been dubbed as a sort of ‘biological insurance’ on the life of their children, allowed by Italian law only for infants that could help their brothers and sister struck by genetic diseases. These famous moms unknowingly risk spreading a false message, that the storage of umbilical cord stem cells for ‘private use’ is based on definite scientific research. “This is not true,” said ex-Health Minister Girolamo Sirchia, yesterday in Milan for the launch of a campaign to donate umbilical cord blood to be used by patients that need a life saving transplant for sicknesses like leukemia and lymphomas.

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For patients who suffer a major heart attack, get treatment at the hospital but are left with a damaged heart, Dr. Roger Gammon of the Heart Hospital of Austin is testing a new process to reverse that damage.

Just as a Houston hospital is investigating stem cells to repair the brains of stroke patients (see yesterday’s blog), the Heart Hospital is trying out a new stem cell therapy to fix the hearts of patients who suffered their first attack.
It is one of the nation’s first hospitals to test the new therapy.

Gammon, an interventional cardiologist, is leading the clinical trial in which patients are injected with donated adult stem cells from the bone marrow of others. The stems cells are purified by Osiris Therapeutics, Inc., which markets them as a product called Prochymal. Osiris is financing the research project, which is being done in the gold-standard way: Half of the patients are getting stem cells, and half are getting a placebo (a harmless product that looks the same). The researchers and patients don’t know which patients are getting the stem cells and which one aren’t.

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Western Pennsylvania Cancer Institute’s Dr. Entezam Sahovic: We are hopeful that this new technology will enable us to help more patients in need of transplants.

A joint venture between Gamida Cell and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. will carry out a study at Western Pennsylvania Hospital (WPH). WPH is currently enrolling patients for the study.
The ExCell study will assess the safety and efficacy of StemEx as a treatment for hematological malignancies, including leukemia and lymphoma, in a single arm, global, pivotal registration study.
StemEx is a graft of expanded stem/progenitor cells, derived from a single unit of umbilical cord blood and transplanted in combination with non expanded cells from the same unit. It is being developed by a joint venture equally owned and managed by Gamida Cell and Teva.

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