Ossium Health has developed a method to extract bone marrow from deceased donors, cryopreserving it for transplantation into patients with blood cancers. This approach aims to create an ‘off-the-shelf’ treatment for patients who desperately need a transplant.
Ossium’s Deceased Donor Bone Marrow Transplant Program
Overview
Ossium Health is a biotech startup that has developed a method to extract bone marrow from the spinal column of deceased donors. This bone marrow is then cryopreserved and stored in a bank, awaiting transplantation into patients with blood cancers.
The Problem with Unrelated Donors
Sometimes siblings are able to be donors, but 70 percent of patients who need a transplant don’t have a donor match in their family. In those cases, doctors turn to unrelated donors who have joined the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) or other stem cell registries.
The Advantages of Deceased Donors
The team turned to Ossium Health to collect bone marrow from recently deceased organ donors, cryopreserving it and building a bank of frozen bone marrow. This approach aims to create an “off-the-shelf” treatment that can be readily deployed for patients who desperately need a transplant.
Ossium’s Approach
Spinal columns from cadavers are shipped to a processing facility in Indianapolis, where the bone marrow is extracted and cryogenically frozen. The company has opened an early-stage clinical trial to test the approach in patients with blood cancers.
Potential Future Applications
Negrin sees potential for deceased donor bone marrow transplants to help organ transplant patients, who currently must take immunosuppressive drugs for the rest of their lives to avoid their immune system attacking the new organ. However, there’s some evidence that the freezing process can decrease the quality of stem cells and may slightly affect their ability to regenerate new blood cells.
The Challenge of Finding a Match
A donor must have closely matched genes for human leukocyte antigens (HLA) to be considered compatible. “The issue is that it is difficult to find a fully matched donor for minorities,” says Muneer Abidi, an oncologist at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, who led the patient’s care.
Bone Marrow Transplants
Bone marrow is the machinery responsible for making nearly all of the body’s blood cells. Stem cells in the marrow give rise to new blood cells. But if the bone marrow malfunctions, those stem cells can form abnormal blood cells, causing cancer. During a bone marrow transplant, doctors infuse the donor stem cells from the marrow into the recipient’s bloodstream.
Future Developments
Ossium will also need a very large and diverse donor pool in order to provide matches that donor registries don’t already have. However, Abidi is confident that deceased donor bone marrow transplants could open up a significant treatment option for minorities. “Once this becomes standard of care,” Abidi says, “this is going to be a game changer.”
