A Door Opened: Opportunities for Transfusion Medicine Professionals in Cellular Therapies
In the same manner that cells can regenerate once infused inside a patient’s body, the field of cellular therapies is rapidly expanding. This new field took off in the 1990s and its upward mobility has continued into the 21st century. The National Bone Marrow Program, for example, reported that in 2008 it facilitated 4,300 total transplants — twice as many as five years earlier. And stories of life-saving cellular therapy procedures pepper the media. But as this field grows, experts are concerned that there will not be enough clinical laboratory professionals — defined as individuals who prepare, process, or store cells for immediate or future transplants — to manufacture and deliver the products.
“There is … a shortage of workers,” said Jo Lynn Procter, MT(ASCP)SBB, supervisor of operations at the cellular therapy lab at the National Institutes of Health. “We have mostly hired people without cellular therapy experience.”
Added Lynn O’Donnell, PhD, director of the cellular therapy laboratory at Ohio State University James Cancer Hospital and Research Institute in Columbus: “Finding a cell therapy manager is even more challenging. Manager positions are vacant for quite a while.”
Nationwide trends corroborate Procter’s and O’Donnell’s viewpoint. In California, the state legislature passed the California Stem Cell and Biotechnology Education and Workforce Development Act of 2009 in response to reports that predict a shortage of stem cell therapy and biotechnology professionals, particularly laboratory technicians. Plus, the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation has stated that “progress [in transplant technology] … has stretched our workforce.”
For blood bankers, a demand for cellular therapy workers might give way to a good career opportunity. Just as a tough economy often encourages professionals to develop methods for providing high-quality and cost-effective care, a shortage of cellular therapy employees may motivate blood bankers to learn different skills and contribute to patient care in new ways. These professionals are sought-after employees for the cellular therapy laboratory, Procter said, because they already have a lot of good experience handling biological products. With a small pool of experienced cellular therapy professionals from which to hire, she said that cell therapy leadership often turns to veteran blood bankers. O’Donnell agreed, saying that to be hired at her laboratory, a medical technologist certification is required.
Lizette Caballero, MT(ASCP), the laboratory manager at Florida Hospital Center’s cellular therapy laboratory in Orlando, said that some transfusion medicine professionals are enthusiastic about an opportunity to move to cellular therapies. They might be ready for a change from routine blood banking and feel they have already learned most aspects of the science. The cellular therapies field, Caballero emphasized, is something different. “It is a new field, and people are excited about that,” Caballero said. “They see cellular therapies as an emerging area of medicine with a lot of growth opportunities.”
Plus, blood bankers may want a more intimate patient care experience than occurs typically in transfusion medicine facilities, which a position in a cellular therapy laboratory may offer, Caballero explained.
“We are there in the room with the patient and their families during the whole [cellular therapy] procedure,” Caballero said. “Some people can’t handle it, but other people really do want that type of interaction with patients.”
People with transfusion medicine experience are not the only ones able to find employment processing cellular therapies, O’Donnell emphasized. Those with a degree in a related biological science may still be hired, but people with laboratory experience typically are more desirable.
Training and Retaining
Even individuals with blood banking experience still face a learning curve when they transition to cellular therapies. O’Donnell estimates it takes at least three months for new hires to be able to function independently in performing routine and frequent procedures. At the NIH, Procter said that training lasts approximately eight months.
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