Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplants
From 1957 E. Donnall Thomas showed that donor marrow can replace a patient's blood-forming system; transplants now cure leukaemia and other blood diseases, and passed one million by 2012.
Open in the interactive tree →Thomas's 1957 paper reported marrow infusions into six patients, none of them lasting successes; in 1958 his team grafted marrow from an identical twin into a 3-year-old girl with leukaemia after a large radiation dose, and she did well for six months before relapse. By 1975 his Seattle team had several successes using brothers and sisters as donors, and he shared the 1990 Nobel Prize with Joseph Murray. The millionth transplant was reported in December 2012. A 2007 transplant from a donor with a natural HIV-resistance gene variant left a Berlin leukaemia patient with no detectable HIV, though the procedure is too risky for others with HIV.
Prerequisites
- Radiotherapy1896-1900Lethal-dose radiation clears the patient's own marrow before the graft.
- Chemotherapy1942Cancer drugs given with radiation destroy diseased marrow before the graft.
- Organ Transplantation1954Donor matching and rejection problems were first met with organ grafts.
Unlocks
- First CRISPR Medicines2023The sickle cell therapy edits a patient's own blood stem cells and returns them as a transplant.
- Curing CanceropenTransplants cure some leukaemias and lymphomas that drugs alone cannot.
- Curing HIVopenThe documented HIV cures (Berlin, London) came from stem cell transplants.