There are certain life-threatening diseases in which stem cell transplantation (SCT) is applied in the hopes of achieving a cure.

Most commonly, SCT is used for cancers of the bone marrow, blood or lymph nodes, i.e. all the tissues where blood cells live, which do not respond to normal chemotherapy. SCT is also used for treatment of genetic defects in the blood-making or immune defense, for severe autoimmune diseases like Multiple Sclerosis, rheumatoid disease, Lupus Erythematodes, etc. and for acquired defects in blood-making (bone marrow failure). The treatment is very intense and therefore typically only used when alternative options have been exhausted: Usually the patient’s immune system is destroyed with a chemotherapy or radiation, then the stem cells are infused. Although difficult, SCT has been an established procedure for several decades. The success rate of SCT has improved in recent years due to modern techniques and progress with respect to supportive pharmaceuticals.

Depending on the disease, either the patient’s own stem cells may be used (autologous transplantation) or those from a donor (allogeneic transplantation) are applied. The latter requires the availability of a suitable donor which must share certain highly variable tissue recognition genes, which is often hard to find. In allogeneic transplantation, when more than one fitting donor is identified, the youngest will be selected because the function of young stem cells is superior to that of older ones.

At Stem Cell Center Germany, we focus on the patient’s own healthy blood stem cells (autologous), to store autologous stem cells as young as possible for the unlikely occurrence of an illness necessitating autologous SCT. Today, their use is firmly established to treat certain cancers of the lymph nodes and immune cells. Further therapies are subject of intensive research and further application areas, specifically gene therapy where useful genes are inserted into patient-derived stem cells, are about to enter clinical practice.

To store a patient’s blood stem cells while they are young and retain a high productivity level enables him to benefit from current and future application areas of the blood stem cells.