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Scientific and ethical challenges associated with bone marrow transplants were on the agenda when Crown Princess Victoria visited Lund on 8 May to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Tobias Foundation with a jubilee symposium.
The foundation, which aims to support the establishment of a Swedish bone marrow/stem cell registry as well as research on diseases which can be treated with a bone marrow or stem cell transplant, has the Swedish Crown Princess at its royal patron.
At the jubilee symposium in Lund, world-leading researchers gathered to present research findings and discuss the scientific and ethical challenges facing stem cell research and bone marrow transplantation.Diseases such as leukaemia and severe anaemia and immunodeficiency diseases can be life threatening. Bone marrow transplantation is often the only treatment available. The procedure entails that blood stem cells in the donor’s bone marrow are given to the patient to replace and strengthen the patient’s own blood system with healthy blood cells.
“A lot of the research on bone marrow transplantation is about understanding the mechanisms that control blood stem cells to eventually be able to expand the blood’s stem cells before transplantation. This will allow us to perform more transplants, achieve better results, and cure more patients”, says Stefan Karlsson, professor of molecular medicine and gene therapy at Lund University, and one of the hosts of the jubilee symposium and recipient of the Tobias Prize in 2009.
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