| |
| August 1, 2008 |
| |
| If
you are unable to view these articles or access the links,
please visit the ASBMT Web Site at www.asbmt.org to read this
issue. To be removed from this distribution list, please see
instructions at bottom. |
| |
 |
Top
Stories |
| |
|
|
Legislation and Regulation |
| |
|
|
Clinical
Research |
| |
|
|
Biopharmaceutical News |
| |
|
|
Association
News |
| |
|
|
Calendar |
| |
|
|
Job &
Fellowship Connections |
| |
|
|
Monthly Journal |
| |
|
|
eNews
Archives |
|
|
| |
 |
| |
 |
|
|
| |
BMT
Tandem Meetings
Feb. 11-15, 2009
Tampa, Florida |
| |
|
|
|
| |
 |
Recruitment
|
Do you have any thoughts or recommendations on how to recruit more young physicians to blood and marrow transplantation?
|
 |
|
|
| |
|
| Calendar |
|
• September
10th International Conference on Chronic Myeloid Leukemia: Biological Basis of Therapy
European School of Haematology
Sept. 5-7
Boston Sheraton Hotel
Boston, Massachusetts
American Association of Tissue Banks (AATB)
32nd Annual Meeting
Sept. 6-9
Marriott Chicago Magnificent Mile
Chicago, Illinois
11th Biennial National Symposium on Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation
Stanford University School of Medicine BMT Program
Sept. 12-13
Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center
Stanford, California
European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)
Annual Meeting
Sept. 12-16
Stockholm International Fair
Stockholm, Sweden
ISCT Europe Regional Meeting
International Society for Cellular Therapy (ISCT)
Sept. 14-16
Cultural Conference Center Elzenveld
Antwerp, Belgium
American Society of Multicultural Health and Transplant Professionals (ASMHTP)
16th Annual Meeting
Sept. 17-19
Radisson Plaza Hotel
Minneapolis, Minnesota
25th National Oncology Economics Conference
Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC)
Sept. 17-20
Hyatt Regency San Francisco
San Francisco, California
5th Annual Symposium on Controversies and Clinical Challenges in Myeloma, Lymphoma and Leukemia
Physicians’ Education Resource
Sept. 19-20
Arizona Biltmore Resort
Phoenix, Arizona
Celebrating a Second Chance at Life Survivorship Symposium
BMT InfoNet
Sept. 20-21
Doubletree Hotel at the Galleria
Dallas, Texas
8th Annual Somatic Cell Therapy Symposium
International Society for Cellular Therapy (ISCT)
Sept. 22-24
Hyatt Regency Bethesda
Bethesda, Maryland
Stem Cells, Cancer and Aging
Keystone Symposium
Sept. 29-Oct. 4
Swissotel The Stamford/Biopolis
Singapore
• October
American Association of Blood Banks (AABB)
2008 Annual Meeting
Oct. 4-7
Palais des Congrès de Montréal
Montreal, Canada
9th International Congress on Cell Biology
Korean Society for Molecular and Cellular Biology
Oct. 7-9
COEX Convention & Exhibition Center
Seoul, Korea
Targeted and Tailored Therapies in Hematology/Oncology
Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine
Oct. 11
McDonald’s Hamburger University
Oak Brook, Illinois
Cytokines 2008: Cytokines in Cancer & Infectious Diseases
International Cytokine Society (ICS)
Oct. 12-16
Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel
Montreal, Canada
International Congress on Hematologic Malignancies: Lymphoma and Myeloma
Imedex
Oct. 16-18
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
New York, New York
International Society of Hematology (ISH)
32nd World Congress
Oct. 19-23
Bangkok Convention Centre at CentralWorld
Bangkok, Thailand
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| Top
Stories |
| |
Stem-cell tourism condemned as unethical and dangerous
Stem cell treatments have become a new form of medical tourism, with patients traveling to places such as the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and the Ukraine. However, there is little or no scientific evidence to support the claims of these clinics that these treatments can cure diseases. Mainstream researchers condemn stem-cell tourism as unethical and dangerous and urge patients to wait for rigorous studies. 
Stem cell treatment for optic nerve hypoplasia called a scam
Umbilical cord stem cell treatment for optic nerve hypoplasia is a “21st century snake oil scam,” say pediatric eye surgeons at Washington University School of Medicine. Parents are paying as much as $50,000 in China for extracted cord stem cells, which are injected into the patient’s cerebrospinal fluid.
Canada funding stem cell research partnership
The Canadian government is giving $100 million during three years to a partnership between scientists in Canada and California that is researching links between cancer stem cells and the disease. The funds will go to the Cancer Stem Cell Consortium, a partnership between Canadian research organizations and the University of California, Berkeley's Stem Cell Center. California is expected to match this funding.
|
| |
 A Word from President Helen Heslop, MD
Can you name the most popular medical residencies? Would it surprise you to hear dermatology and diagnostic radiology?
According to the National Resident Matching Program, those two residencies are the most competitive, with six applicants for each opening in dermatology and five for each in diagnostic radiology.
This is a change from past generations and appears to be a shift based on lifestyle: better pay, more autonomy and more-controllable hours.
The recruitment of young physicians into blood and marrow transplantation was an important issue when ASBMT leaders convened in a retreat this summer to evaluate trends in our field and steps that the society can take to shape that future. All indications suggest that workforce needs will become more difficult and challenging in the years immediately ahead, especially if the demand for blood transplants triples by 2015, as predicted by the National Marrow Donor Program.
As background for this discussion, Dr. James Gajewski gave a presentation on “Workforce Issues in Blood and Marrow Transplantation,” in which he outlined projected shortages of physicians and oncologists, based on data from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
More specific to our interests, he also provided provocative data on a severe shortage of personnel in the BMT field. For example, his analysis of ASBMT member physicians showed that nearly half of us are age 50 or older. It can be presumed that many, maybe most, within that half will retire in the next 15 to 20 years.
We clearly need a strategy to recruit many new physicians. The Board members agreed that a preliminary step is to collect more definitive data about you, our society’s members, to help assess workforce resources and forecast needs and to help characterize BMT for prospective entrants to the field.
We also will need to engage prospective entrants to our field at an earlier stage, extending our reach beyond hematology/oncology fellows to internal medicine and pediatric residents. As an initial step in that direction, the Board resolved to create travel grants for second-year internal medicine and pediatric residents to attend next year’s BMT Tandem Meetings in Tampa. The residents will be invited to participate in the orientation session for BMT fellows.
We can’t sell our specialty as one with a predictable, 40-hour-per-week, daytime schedule. We can emphasize to recruits our expanding ability to cure seriously ill patients, our clinical-laboratory interface and the quality of our basic, translational and clinical science.
Do you have any thoughts or recommendations on how to recruit young physicians to blood and marrow transplantation? If you do, please use the Reader Poll in the left-hand column to send us your ideas.
– Helen
|
|
| |
| Legislation and Regulation |
| |
FDA launches regulatory affairs fellowship
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced a two-year fellowship to attract scientists, engineers and health professionals to careers in the agency. The fellowship will provide advanced training in scientific analyses that support safety and other regulatory decisions. |
| |
| Clinical Research |
| |
Researchers multiply blood stem cells in the laboratory
Using blood stem cells from mice, researchers at Edinburgh University were able to multiply the number of cells by 150 times. According to a report in the July 3 issue of Cell Stem Cell, this finding could lead to efficient production of blood stem cells in the laboratory, which could then multiply in the body to renew a patient's blood supply.
Cancer drug also could fight graft-versus-host disease
SAHA, a drug recently approved to fight cancer tumors, also is able to reduce the effects of graft-versus-host disease, according to research in the July issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. In a study of mice, scientists at the University of Michigan determined the drug was able to significantly diminish the destructive inflammatory effects caused by dendritic cells.
Adult stem cells repair damage to spinal cord
Stem cells taken from the spinal cord in adults, grown in the lab and returned to the site of an injury, can restore some physical function in paralyzed rodents and primates. According to a report in the July issue of PLoS Medicine, neural stem cells in the adult spinal cord are limited to a layer of ependymal cells that proliferate upon spinal cord injury, migrate toward the site and differentiate for several months.
Scientists find “switch” for Parkinson’s-related cholesterol
Researchers have discovered a genetic “master switch” that controls red blood cells and the alpha-synnuclein cholesterol found in patients with Parkinson’s disease. According to a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a genetic switch called "GATA" controls the ability of red blood cells to carry oxygen and the activity of nerve cells that produce alpha-synnuclein.
|
| |
| Biopharmaceutical News |
| |
GSK sponsoring research at Harvard Stem Cell Institute
GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to sponsor at least $25 million in work at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. As part of the five-year agreement, the company will support research to try to find cures for cancer, obesity, diabetes, and neurological, cardiac and musculoskeletal diseases.
ThermoGenesis receives FDA OK on MarrowXpress
ThermoGenesis Corp. received authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin marketing its MarrowXpress device for use in a clinical laboratory setting or intraoperatively, for preparation of a cell concentrate from bone marrow. The device will be regulated as laboratory equipment labeled for a specific medical use. |
| |
| Association
News |
| |
Registration opens for 2009 BMT Tandem Meetings in Tampa
Online registration and housing opens today for the 2009 BMT Tandem Meetings, Feb. 11-15 in Tampa, Fla. On a single Web page are links to meeting registration, housing reservations, preliminary program, abstract submission and parallel conferences.
Abstract submission deadline is Oct. 8 for Tampa meeting
Abstracts for the BMT Tandem Meetings in Tampa are being accepted through Oct. 8. Invitations for oral presentation will be offered to 66 authors whose abstracts receive the highest scores from the review committees. Many others will be accepted for poster presentation. ASBMT will provide travel grants of $1,000 each to young investigators whose abstracts are accepted for oral presentation.
Americans, Europeans compare radiation injury preparedness
Representatives of ASBMT, the National Marrow Donor Program and several European government and private organizations met last month in Germany to review and harmonize their approaches to the management of victims of a radiation mass disaster.
162 transplant facilities now FACT accredited
During the second quarter of 2008, three blood and marrow transplant programs achieved first-time FACT accreditation, and 13 others earned accreditation renewals, according to the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy. A total of 162 transplant programs are now FACT accredited.
Conference celebrates cord blood anniversaries
The deadline is Sept. 1 for online submission of abstracts for the International Conference on Biology and Clinical Applications of Cord Blood Cells, which takes place Oct. 16-19 in Mandelieu, near Cannes, France. The conference celebrates the 20th anniversary of the first cord blood transplant and the 10th anniversary of the founding of the International NetCord Foundation.
This month in BBMT: E. Donnall Thomas Lecture
The E. Donnall Thomas Lecture at last year’s BMT Tandem Meetings, presented by Irving Weissman, MD, has been adapted for publication in this month’s issue of Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation. In his presentation, Dr. Weissman discusses normal stem cells, hematopoietic stem cells, cancer stem cells and brain stem cells.
|
| |
|
