Blog | HemaCare

You can only learn so much from laboratory mice. Trials of stem cells conducted in our four-legged friends may serve as a bridge to human studies.

A staple in labs across the world, laboratory rodents are genetically homogenous, closely monitored, and are kept in standard, controllable environments -- and that's a problem. In the human real world, people are genetically different, have various diets and habits, and live in diverse environments. What's more, many times disease is induced in these animals, whereas in humans diseases are rarely planned and may have more than one cause. It's not very surprising that so many promising preclinical experiments do not pan out in human clinical trials. The cost of these failures is sky high, for companies, patients, and society.

New discovery can make an existing leukemia treatment more effective

Prolymphocytic leukemia (PLL) is a rare and aggressive form of malignancy characterized by marked lymphocytosis and splenomegaly. PLL represents only 2% of all chronic lymphoid leukemias in adults over the age of 30. Most patients with PLL shows involvement of the peripheral blood, bone marrow, lymph nodes, liver, and spleen. In addition, skin infiltration and serious effusions may also occur at rates of approximately 25 and 15 percent, respectively.

Gene and cellular therapy is different from the drugs that have come before -- and so are the dangers. Guidance from the FDA is available to avoid pitfalls.

A double-edged stem cell transplantation therapy is being evaluated at the non-clinical stage as a cure for lupus. Will this make it to the clinic?