“Don’t be overly heroic.” This is what the family members and friends of Sandipan, a naik from the Indian army had to say when he told them that he wanted to travel almost 750 km from his residence in Latur, Maharashtra, to Bangalore during the time of the Covid-induced lockdown back in 2020 to donate his blood stem cells.
“We are clearly taught that being a soldier is not about how many enemies you kill, but about how many lives a soldier has saved. So I took permission from my unit head at the army and put on my mask and left for Bangalore by road,” Sandipan says in an official online video clip.
He registered for donating his stem cells in 2019, at a donation drive organised by DKMS-BMST Foundation India, a non-profit organisation dedicated to providing a second chance at life to blood cancer patients. He says that the foundation helped him to travel from Maharashtra to Bangalore amidst the pandemic.
Like Sandipan, Harsh, another naik in the army had also pledged to donate his stem cells. In just five months after registering (in July 2019), he found a matching donor. “When I got a call from DKMS-BMST that they have found a matching a donor, it was an indescribable feeling. Knowing that I could save someone’s life made me feel special,” Harsh mentions in an official media release.
According to the media release, DKMS-BMST Foundation India is a Bangalore-based non-profit organisation working for the upliftment and aid of people affected by blood cancer and other blood disorders, such as thalassemia and aplastic anemia in India and abroad. The main focus of the foundation is to raise awareness about blood stem cell transplantation and register potential blood stem cell donors. It is a joint venture between BMST (Bangalore Medical Services Trust) and DKMS, one of the world’s largest international blood stem cell donor centers.
What are stem cells?
According to the National Health Service, United Kingdom, stem cell transplant is to replace damaged blood cells with healthy ones, especially in the case of people affected by conditions such as leukemia and lymphoma variants. It also states that the stem cells are produced by the bone marrow and they can form into either three types of blood cells – red blood cells (RBC), white blood cells (WBC) or platelets. According to Cancer Research UK, stem cell transplant could also be used for treating myeloma and its variants.
How to donate blood stem cells
The DKMS-BMST foundation also states that over one lakh people in India are annually diagnosed with some form of blood cancer, making it one of the country’s leading causes of cancer-related deaths.
“The foremost challenge that looms before Indian patients needing life-saving transplants is finding matching blood stem cell donor,” says Patrick Paul, CEO, DKMS-BMST in an official statement.
A stem cell recipient needs healthy stem cells from an HLA-matched donor for a successful stem cell transplant. Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) is a gene that helps the body differentiate between proteins and chemicals that are compatible or harmful. Basically, it plays a major role in defining the body’s immune responses. So, the donor’s stem cells have to match with that of the recipient for the process to work.
“Unfortunately, only 30 per cent of the patients with blood cancer find a matching donor in their family, and the rest, 70 per cent, depends on an unrelated donor,” Paul adds.
Who can donate blood stem cells?
According to Cancer Research UK, stem cell donation could be done either from the affected person itself after conducting the necessary medical examinations or from a donor whose HLA matches with the recipient. It is a painless process and is similar to donating blood. The British Bone Marrow Registry states that stem cells donation is absolutely safe and lists two ways of donating them.
- From the blood: This is similar to a blood donation except that one has to take an injection four days before the procedure to increase blood stem cells. After that, the person will be intravenously connected to a cell separator machine. Blood will be taken from one arm and collected in the separator where the stem cells are drawn out. The rest of the blood will be returned to the body through the other arm.
- From the hip bones: Here, the stem cells are collected from the hip bones using a needle and syringe. This process is done after giving general anesthesia. One might have to stay in the hospital for 48 hours.
Need for a more comprehensive Indian registry
The need for a more comprehensive Indian registry of stem cell donors and recipients has been a long-standing demand during recent years. The Indian government had recently announced that it would set up a dedicated stem cell registry for the benefit of those affected by blood cancer and related conditions. At the moment, a handful of voluntary organisations are trying to bridge the gap between stem cell donors and recipients in the country. According to the World Marrow Donor Association (WMDA), it has collected a database of 41,356,864 donors across the world.
“The solution lies in establishing a robust and extensive donor database to bridge this gap between patients and potential donors. It’s vital for the public to understand that donating stem cells is a straightforward and painless process,” Paul adds.
Stem cell transplant and diabetes
Stem cell therapy is one of the most explored medical domains to find a possible ‘cure’ for type 1 diabetes which is an auto immune disease. The basic idea is to reprogram the immune system and prevent it from targeting the pancreatic beta cells responsible for insulin secretion. Multiple research is underway to study how marrow-derived stem cells (MSC) could be used for this purpose.
Interestingly, Vertex, a Boston-based pharma company got clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in March 2023 for investigational new drug application (IND) for VX-264, a stem cell-derived, fully differentiated pancreatic islet cell therapy with the potential to treat type 1 diabetes (T1D). The company has been working on two separate projects code named VX-880 and VX-264, both involving stem cell therapy to cure type 1 diabetes.
Takeaways
- Stem cell therapy is widely being used for managing various forms of blood cancer
- There is a need for more awareness on blood stem cell donation
- Stem cell donation is a painless process akin to regular blood donation
- Stem cell therapy also holds promise for finding a cure for type 1 diabetes
