Stem Cells

[Guest guest]

Hi All.

Just saw this on another list. Is it the way towards a cure we are all

hoping for?

Miles.

You have heard about blood groups. And you've been told about blood

incompatibility: put A, B or AB blood type into an O type receiver, and

you will kill him/her. But this new case published in

The New England

<http://news.softpedia.com/news/UNIQUE-Girl-Changes-Blood-Type-and-Immune-System\

-After-a-Transplant-77172.shtml>

Journal of Medicine has amazed the scientific world and it is an

absolute first.

A 15 years old Australian girl spontaneously changed blood groups and

took her donor's blood group following a liver transplant.

" Demi-Lee Brennan was aged nine and seriously ill with liver failure

when she received the transplant, " doctors at a top Sydney children's

hospital

<http://news.softpedia.com/news/UNIQUE-Girl-Changes-Blood-Type-and-Immune-System\

-After-a-Transplant-77172.shtml>

told AFP.

9 months after the surgery, the medics found that she had changed blood

type and her own immune system

<http://news.softpedia.com/news/UNIQUE-Girl-Changes-Blood-Type-and-Immune-System\

-After-a-Transplant-77172.shtml>

to that of the donor after stem cells from the new implanted liver mover

into her bone marrow.

" She is now a healthy 15-year-old. I have given several presentations on

the case around the world and have heard of none like it. It is

extremely unusual -- in fact we don't know of any other instance in

which this happened, " Stormon, a hepatologist treating her, told

AFP.

" In effect she had had a bone marrow transplant. The majority of her

immune system had also switched over to that of the donor. "

Brennan is now living just like any other outpatient and medics are

attempting to get as much information as possible from this case, with

further applications

<http://news.softpedia.com/news/UNIQUE-Girl-Changes-Blood-Type-and-Immune-System\

-After-a-Transplant-77172.shtml>

in transplant surgery, where rejection of donor organs by the

recipient's immune system is a huge impediment.

" It appears that Brennan may be fortunate because a sequence of

serendipitous events, including a post-transplantation infection, may

have given the stem cells from her donor's liver the chance to

proliferate. The task now was to establish whether the same sort of

outcome could be replicated in other transplant patients, " he said.