Regenerative medicine is the practice of replacing or “regenerating” human cells, tissues and organs to establish or restore their normal function. The field includes a wide range of approaches to replacing damaged tissue or stimulating the body’s own repair mechanisms to heal organs or tissues. Examples of regenerative treatments include cellular therapies, immunomodulation therapy and tissue engineering. Some of these treatments include the use of stem cells, which can be harvested from cord blood, bone marrow and peripheral blood.
Cellular therapy refers to the use of living human cells to repair, replace or restore the function of damaged cells, tissues or organs.
Cellular therapies use many different types of cells, including hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cells (HSCs), skeletal muscle stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells, lymphocytes, dendritic cells and pancreatic islet cells. They are used to treat patients with many types of diseases and conditions.
The most common cellular therapy is hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) from bone marrow. It is used to treat patients with a variety of blood cancers and hematological conditions.
HSCs are present in blood and bone marrow. Individuals may donate them for their own treatment (autologous donation) or for someone else (allogeneic donation). Allogeneic transplants often require the donor and patient to share matching human leukocyte antigen types.
Bone marrow, which is liquid and resembles blood, is collected through a surgical procedure that takes approximately an hour. The donor usually receives general anesthesia and a physician uses a hollow needle to remove bone marrow from the donor’s hip bones.
Peripheral blood progenitor cells are collected from the blood using an apheresis device, which separates blood into components, keeping the progenitor cells and returning the rest of the blood to the donor. Donors commonly receive a growth factor drug for several days prior to cell collection.
Traditionally, after birth, the umbilical cord and placenta were discarded as medical waste. However, we now know that this is a source of valuable hematopoietic stem cells and hematopoietic progenitor cells, which can have therapeutic benefits. Today, a newborn's parents can save their baby's cord blood and can choose to:
AABB is the Association for the Advancement of Blood & Biotherapies. AABB is dedicated to its mission of improving lives by making transfusion medicine and biotherapies safe, available, and effective worldwide.
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