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Increasing Donor Availability for African American Patients with Leukemias and Other Blood Disorders in Need of Transplant
Joseph H. Laver, MD
College of Medicine
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Specific Aims:
- Increase African American bone marrow donors
- Collect cord blood of unaffected sickle cell disease siblings
- Transplant cord blood to affected siblings
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| Bone marrow transplants are widely accepted treatments for various diseases involving blood, bone marrow, and lymph nodes. Donations from brothers and sisters (siblings) with the same genes are most likely to be successful, but when the patient has no siblings who match genetically, unrelated donors who match are good alternatives. Registries or lists of potential volunteer donors exist, but there are not enough African Americans on these lists, because of the difficulty in obtaining complicated genetic matches in this population. Dr. Laver aims to increase the number of African Americans in the National Bone Marrow Registry. Another project aim focuses on treating sickle cell disease (a blood disease affecting African Americans) by using a particular type of blood cell (stem cells) from the umbilical cords of infants not affected by this disease. This project will develop a program of collecting, freezing and storing cord blood obtained from unaffected infants born to families of children with sickle cell disease in South Carolina. If the genes match, these stem cells can be transplanted to the affected children. The program will be evaluated on the basis of the numbers of new African American donors registered and the numbers of cord blood specimens collected and stored. |
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