tagged w/ Bone marrow
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(Editor's note: Reposting this article for a good cause)
A Community Rallies To Help Amit Gupta Find A Bone Marrow Match
By Porter Gale
Earlier this week, I first learned about Amit Gupta and his story from a twitter post. A friend of Emily Olson, co-founder of www.foodzie.com, sent me a tweet asking for support getting a Virgin America ticket donated for his friend who is in need of a potential airline line ticket to travel to a bone marrow transplant. Getting the place ticket was easy. One email to David Cush, the CEO of Virgin America and he graciously agreed to help out. Finding the perfect bone marrow match for Amit Gupta is the real challenge. Amit, a member of the San Francisco tech community, has leukemia. He is also South Asian, a population that is dramatically under-represented in existing bone marrow registries. At present, many of the registries don’t have the resources to target populations that are difficult to reach.
What I’ve seen unfold over the past several days is a passionate community, using a variety of digital communications to help Amit find the bone marrow match that he desperately and immediately needs. The community is rallying and hopes you’ll join the registry, tweet and forward this article to your friends to help Amit, and others, find a match. Marketing guru and author Seth Godin posted a story on his blog; Michael Galpert joined in, both urging others take a cotton swab test by simply registering here: bit.ly/swabacheek. The test is painless, and in fact the technology developed for bone marrow transfers has dramatically improved in the last decade, making bone marrow transfers much easier -- if one is lucky enough to find a match (more information can be found at www.marrow.org). There is also a hashtag dialog on Twitter under the tag #iswabbedforamit.
So today is the day you can do some good with your social media tools. Help Amit and others find a match with a tweet, a blog post, an email forward or by taking a cotton swab test today. Let's use our digital tools and do some good.
If you have questions or thoughts to share, please feel free to contact Porter Gale at @portergale. Porter Gale is a writer, public speaker, marketing consultant and the former VP of Marketing at Virgin America.
(Editor's note: Reposting this article for a good cause)
A Community Rallies... more
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Casey Chan — For the first time in history, a patient has been implanted with a synthetic windpipe that was created using the patient's stem cells and a replica of his original windpipe. It's amazing even though it kinda looks like PVC piping
It's the future of medical science: there's no donor needed and no depressingly long wait times. Scientists from London created the replica using 3D scans of the 36-year-old patient. The material was made from polymers with a spongy and flexible texture with stiff rings around the tube to recreate a more human-like trachea. They coated and soaked the trachea model in a solution of stem cell's taken from the patient's bone marrow and after two days, the patient's own tissues had grown to cover replica.
According to the Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, a professor at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm that performed the surgery, said the "stem cells from the own patient were growing inside and outside. This structure was becoming a living structure." It's been a month since the surgery and the patient's body has accepted the synthetic organ and he should be released soon. The doctors hope that it can lead to more artificial organs for future transplants. Not cloning!
http://gizmodo.com/5819128/surgeons-perform-the-worlds-first-synthetic-organ-transplantCasey Chan — For the first time in history, a patient has been implanted with a... more
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Ba-ba, ba-baaaaaaaaa! Time for the positive news! News will actually not make you depressed! With Tony D.Ba-ba, ba-baaaaaaaaa! Time for the positive news! News will actually not make you... more
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At six months old, Sophia Lopez is fighting an unimaginable battle against a fatal disease. Diagnosed with Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), Sophia and her family are in desperate need of a bone marrow donor to save Sophia's life.
http://www.disabled-world.com/news/america/newyork/daughter-leukemia.phpAt six months old, Sophia Lopez is fighting an unimaginable battle against a fatal... more
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Maya's father, Sam, is a good friend of mine and Maya badly needs a hard to match bone marrow transplant. In fact, there are a lot of people out there in need of a transplant, and it's really not too difficult. I hope you consider becoming a marrow donor. neocongoMaya's father, Sam, is a good friend of mine and Maya badly needs a hard to match... more
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Daniel Kraft demonstrates his Marrow Miner -- a new device that quickly harvests life-saving bone marrow with minimal pain to the donor. He emphasizes that the adult stem cells found in bone marrow can be used to treat many terminal conditions, from Parkinson's to heart diseaseDaniel Kraft demonstrates his Marrow Miner -- a new device that quickly harvests... more
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Firefighter Roy Chelsen rescued ten buddies from tower one of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. They'll never forget it and they'll never give up on their savior.Firefighter Roy Chelsen rescued ten buddies from tower one of the World Trade Center... more
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A man desperately needed bone marrow transplant to save his life, but in a pool of seven million donors not a single one was a match. So his 9-year-old daughter saves her fathers life by being the youngest bone marrow donor in history.A man desperately needed bone marrow transplant to save his life, but in a pool of... more
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Scientist are seceptical of news that states a man who under went a bone marrow transplant to treat an unrelated acute myeloid leukemia.
The man specifically sought out a donor who had a defective CCR5 receptor which are protected against the virus.
People with two copies of the CCR5 mutation, dubbed delta32, are relatively rare -- only about one in 100 people in Central Europe, Dr. Hütter said in February.
Among the 232 HLA-matched donors found by the German Central Bone Marrow Donor Registry, the researchers found one with the double CCR5 mutation.
The transplant itself was without incident, the researchers said, with standard regimens to prevent graft-versus-host disease, and engraftment was achieved by day 13.
"The patient managed transplantation and engraftment without any remarkable irregularities," the researchers said.
The man's HIV treatment was stopped from the day of transplantation and has not been resumed. His immune cells were completely converted to the new CCR5 pattern by day 60 and there was no sign of HIV RNA or proviral DNA after day 68.
But specialists -- and even Dr. Hütter -- are cautioning that a bone marrow transplant is too dangerous and too expensive to be considered as a routine treatment for HIV.
So the question is are people willing to dish out the cash and take the risk for a possible cure?Scientist are seceptical of news that states a man who under went a bone marrow... more
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New research shows that bone marrow transplants using stem cells from a donor with natural genetic resistance to the AIDS virus can leave HIV patients free of infection.
More at linkNew research shows that bone marrow transplants using stem cells from a donor with... more
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News is coming in this morning that Adrian Sudbury, the 26 year old author of "baldy blog" and the bone marrow campaigner from Sheffield in South Yorkshire, has passed away last night from the leukaemia he was fighting.
Adrian who had recently visited number 10 Downing Street to present his petition to the Prime Minister was instrumental in raising the awareness of what it is actually like to give a bone marrow donation. He has single handedly ensured that thousands of people have registered as donors in the UK in recent months.
He will be sadly missed but his legacy will live on.
News is coming in this morning that Adrian Sudbury, the 26 year old author of... more
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FreyaS
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added this
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3 years ago
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Fibrocytes, blood cells derived from bone marrow, could explain how healthy cells become habitats for cancer.
Fibrocytes, blood cells derived from bone marrow, could explain how healthy cells... more
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