Event

Stem Cell Tourism (23EL-890)

Please note: AABB reserves the right to make updates to this program.

Wednesday, November 1, 2023
2:00 – 3:00 PM Eastern Time
Program Number: 23EL-890

  • Educational Track: Scientific
  • Topic: Biotherapies
  • Intended Audience: Directors, Immunohematology Reference Labs (IRL’s), Laboratory Staff, Managers/Supervisors, Medical Directors, Perfusionists, Physicians, Research Scientists, Residents/Fellows, Scientists, Students (MD, MT, SBB), Technologists
  • Teaching Level: Basic, Intermediate
  • Director: Indira Guleria, PhD, Associate Director, HLA Tissue Typing Laboratory, Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
    Moderator: Tom Spitzer, MD, Director Emeritus, Bone Marrow Transplant Program, Walter Bauer Firm Chief, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
    Speakers:

    • Indira Guleria, PhD, Associate Director, HLA Tissue Typing Laboratory, Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
    • Maria De Los Angeles Muniz, MD, Medical Director of Education, Quality and Regulatory Affairs, Department of Transfusion Medicine and Cellular Therapy, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
  • Program Description

    Unproven cellular therapies are being offered to patients for a variety of conditions and diseases for which other treatments have failed. The practitioners are not fully aware of the risks involved with such therapies. A need therefore exists to bring attention to the potential limitations and adverse effects of these therapies to inform and limit misinformation. In this program, the faculty will discuss some of these cautionary tales and key adverse events associated with unproven cellular therapies as they relate to various disease conditions. A workflow to facilitate an understanding of the regulatory processes involved in the approval of cellular therapies will also be provided to educate the practitioners. This will provide practitioners a foundation and tools to further navigate the field of unproven cellular therapy products.

    Learning Objectives

    After participating in this educational activity, participants should be able to:

    • Describe the concept of stem cell tourism/unproven cellular therapy and understand current trends and the role of social media in spread of unproven therapies across the globe.
    • Realize issues and risk factors involved in the usage of unproven stem cell therapies.
    • Recognize the regulatory, legislative, and ethical issues associated with unregulated stem cell therapies being used across different countries.

    Registration

    Registration includes access to both the live and on-demand version of this eCast.

    If you are a facility interested in participating in this eCast, simply complete the Group Viewing registration form and AABB will provide detailed instructions to share with your team approximately one week prior to the live program (each team member to register for the program utilizing a promocode). For single viewers, simply click on the Register button below to register.

    Please note: registration for the live eCast will close 1 hour prior to the eCast start time. If you register after this time you will receive access to the on-demand eCast when it is available.

    Single Viewer Register
    Group Viewing Register

    Continuing Education Credit

    This activity is eligible for one (1) continuing education credit/contact hour for Physicians, Nurses (including California-based nursing professionals through CBRN), California Lab Personnel, Florida Lab Personnel and General Participation credit. AABB reserves the right to reduce or increase the number of credits granted based on the final activity duration. For more information on each credit type please visit our Continuing Education Credits webpage.

    There is no financial support for this activity.

    Jointly Accredited Provider

    In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by the Association for the Advancement of Blood & Biotherapies (AABB) and CME Outfitters, LLC. CME Outfitters LLC. is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.

    Physicians (ACCME): CME Outfitters, LLC, designates this live activity for a maximum of one (1) AMA PRA Category 1 CreditTM. CME Outfitters, LLC, designates this enduring activity for a maximum of one (1) AMA PRA Category 1 CreditTM. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

    Claiming Credit
    Live Activity - Upon completion of the live activity, you will receive instructions to complete your evaluation, which is necessary to claim credit and receive your certificate of attendance/completion (credit must be claimed by the date provided in the instructions). The evaluation can be found by logging into the AABB Education Platform.

    Enduring Activity - Once the enduring (on-demand) program is available, you will receive instructions to access the AABB Education Platform. Upon completion of viewing the enduring activity, you will need to complete the evaluation, which is necessary to claim credit and receive your certificate of completion (credit must be claimed by the date provided in the AABB Education Platform).

    Program & Credit Expiration Dates:

    • Live Activity Program Date: November 1, 2023; Credit Expiration Date: December 1, 2023
    • Enduring Activity Program Dates: November 1, 2023 – October 31, 2026; Credit Expiration Date: October 31, 2026

    Disclosure Declaration

    It is the policy of CME Outfitters, LLC, and the Association for the Advancement of Blood & Biotherapies to ensure independence, balance, objectivity, and scientific rigor and integrity in all of their CE activities. Faculty must disclose to the participants any relationships with commercial companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. CME Outfitters, LLC, has evaluated, identified, and mitigated any potential conflicts of interest through a rigorous content validation procedure, use of evidence-based data/research, and a multidisciplinary peer review process. The following information is for participant information only. It is not assumed that the presence of such relationships will have a negative impact on the presentations.

    Disclosures for the planners of this event can be found here. Disclosures for the program faculty, peer reviewers, and CME Outfitters, LLC. personnel are provided at the beginning of the program.

    Faculty Biographies

    Dr. Indira GuleriaDr. Indira Guleria is Associate Director of HLA laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Guleria obtained her PhD in Immunology from National Institute of Immunology in India followed by postdoctoral fellowship at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Guleria’s primary research involves studying the mechanisms of transplant tolerance with a focus on the role of various costimulatory molecules in the rejection of, or tolerance to allograft. She has also made original and significant contributions to the field of immunobiology of solid and stem cell transplantation and has been part of the multi-disciplinary team facilitating stem cell transplants at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. In addition to her research and administrative responsibilities, Dr. Guleria has been a leader in providing education to fellows, residents, and faculty and has helped develop professional educational programs and learning tools such as regular lectures, simple and complex case presentations, boot camps, and wet workshops to enhance knowledge, skill, abilities, and competency of the participants.


    Dr. Maria De Los Angeles MunizDr. Maria De Los Angeles Muniz received her bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Puerto Rico in 1994, and her degree in allopathic medicine from the Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico in 2000. She did her internship in internal medicine at the Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, and then a residency in anatomical and clinical pathology at Montefiore Medical Center from 2001 to 2005. Subsequent to this training, she completed fellowships in transfusion medicine at the NIH and a fellowship in surgical pathology at the Allegheny Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. From 2009 to 2011, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona. Other positions held since 2011 include Medical Director at the American Red Cross in Farmington, Connecticut, Medical Director of the American Red Cross in St. Louis, Missouri and Medical Director of the Vitalant Montvale, New Jersey Cord Blood Bank. Dr. Muniz is board-certified in clinical pathology and transfusion medicine. She has had experience in teaching transfusion medicine to many different audiences. She has been invited to give peer-selected presentations at a variety of institutions and medical societies across the country in the area of transfusion medicine. She has a number of publications and has published several case reports and abstracts.


    Dr. Thomas Spitzer Dr. Thomas Spitzer is Medical and Laboratory Director of the Cellular Therapy and Transplantation Laboratory and Emeritus Director of the Bone Marrow Transplant Program, at the Massachusetts General Hospital and is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is also Walter Bauer Firm Chief in the Department of Medicine. Dr. Spitzer received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Bucknell University and his M.D. from the University of Rochester School of Medicine. He completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center and Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and his Hematology-Oncology fellowship at Case Western Reserve University. His primary research interests have included the development of novel strategies for performing hematopoietic cell transplants across HLA barriers for hematologic malignancies and for inducing specific tolerance for organ transplantation by performing combined bone marrow and kidney transplants. The cellular therapy lab that he directs has provided all the products for hematopoietic cell transplantation at MGH and is currently involved with many novel immune effector cellular therapy trials. He has assumed leadership roles in AABB, including serving as Chair of the Cellular Therapy Section Coordinating Committee and as a member of the Board of Directors. He is a devoted teacher of medical students and residents in his Firm Chief role, and he has been the recipient of teaching awards for his contributions to medical education.