Discussion Forums > Announcements
2-day conference in Cairo (organized by Prof El Beshlawy Ped.Hematologist)
Andy Battaglia:
--- Quote ---one of the speakers will talk about a new technique that is said to cure thal in the transplantation field. They take the blood of the patient and expose his blood to ''something'' that change the nature of the patients stem cells, then his own blood is then re-transplanted back again.
--- End quote ---
Is this by any chance retrodifferentiation which is being developed by TriStem in the UK?
http://www.tristemcorp.com/index.htm
We had a thread at our MSN site at
http://groups.msn.com/ThalassemiaPatientsandFriends/general.msnw?action=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=3478&LastModified=4675558476061856223
--- Quote ---Very basically, the technology works by using one's own blood cells which are then retrodifferentiated " a process during which mature, specialised cells can revert back to a more primitive, immature cell stage. These retrodifferentiated stem cells are then capable of redifferentiating into a variety of cell types. Therefore, the process itself has the potential to reconstitute an entire human tissue such as blood, neurones, muscle etc."
This has the potential to greatly reduce or even eliminate the need for blood transfusions, if it works as hoped.
Because it uses the patient's own cells, there is no problem with rejection and it eliminates any ethical issues, sometimes associated with stem cell therapy.
--- End quote ---
This is a very exciting direction in treating thal!
vic:
Just interested to know,
is this only targetting thal majors or would it be relevant to christian as well who is sickle cell beta thal?????
Manal:
Hi Andy
What you explained is exactly what the hema has told me but she didn't mention names. As soon asi know any details i will let you know.
in the the tristem site, i read this attached study
http://www.thescientificworld.com/headeradmin/upload/2006.01.229.pdf
To my understanding this technique is not a cure but it is one of the techniques by which Hb F can be induced in the body and replace the adult HB by taking one of the white blood cells, retrodifferiniate it and then the generated stem cells will target the gamma genes to produce HbF.
So is this considered a cure?
Does this mean that a thal patient can use his own cord blood as it has ready made stem cells???????
Vic
From the article i can understand that Christian's case is applicable too.
Manal
Sharmin:
WOW!
Please let me know if you find out more about this treatment and what the possibility is of its use in the near future.
Sharmin
Sharmin:
Andy,
I have just read about the Tristem research. I am surprised to not have heard about it yet. If this technique works it would be better than transplants and gene therapy because it does not involve chemotherapy or immunosuppression. I am suprised that they are not doing more with this research, I am getting very excited about it - do you think that it is promising in the near future Andy?
Sharmin
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version