Umbilical Cord-Blood Transplants Save Lives of Babies with Rare Genetic Disorder, Krabbe Disease
A new study by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University Medical Center has shown that transplanting umbilical cord blood stem cells can help to save the life of infants with Krabbe disease in addition to improving their brain development. Children born with Krabbe disease lack a particular enzyme that helps the brain and peripheral nervous system develop normally. As a result, an infant quickly looses their developmental skills, sight and hearing before developing seizures and then dying before the age of two. The study involved 11 newborns who had been diagnosed with the disease but had not yet developed any symptoms and 14 infants who had been diagnosed and had begun to show symptoms. All of the babies underwent chemotherapy before receiving an umbilical cord blood stem cell transplant from an unrelated donor. They were then followed and periodically evaluated for the next six-years. All 11 of the newborns have shown normal cognitive, vision and hearing development and none of them have died. Of the children treated after the onset of symptoms, only six have survived and remain severely impaired despite some stabilization of the disease. Researchers concluded that all newborns showed be screened for the disease in order for affected children to receive treatment before they develop symptoms. Medical News TodayMay 19, 2005
‘Cool’ Blood Stem Cell Research Leads to Licensing Deal
A new way of preserving blood stem cells created by researchers at the University of Alberta will help to improve the way umbilical cord blood stem cells are stored. Investigators have developed a way to preserve blood tem cells without the use of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), a common preservation chemical. Although most blood stem cell preservation techniques call for the use of DMSO, use of the chemical can potentially damage the stem cell as well as decrease the number of viable stem cells in a batch. The University of Alberta’s preservation methods eliminates the need for DMSO, thereby increasing the number of stem cells that can be used after processing as well as removing the risk of contaminating the cells. Because of the great promise this new processing technique holds for the future of stem cell banking, Lifebanks Cryogenics Corp., the only umbilical cord blood bank in Canada to be accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB), has signed a licensing agreement with the University of Alberta to develop the findings for commercial use.
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