In one sense, all we do is connect people.
We connect one person, whose immune system needs a boost – with another person, who is prepared to share a little of theirs. Matching patients with donors.
Of course, the detail is more complicated.
In the case of leukaemia, intensive chemotherapy and radiotherapy are used to eradicate the disease. The intensity of these treatments, known as conditioning, has the negative effect of severely weakening the patient’s immune system. The transplant provides the patient’s body with healthy cells capable of regenerating the immune system.
A critical factor in the success of a transplant is the accuracy of the match between the patient’s cell tissue and the donor’s. Timing is also critical: once a patient has chosen to proceed with a transplant, the donor’s tissue – in the form of bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells – must be available as soon as the conditioning treatment has finished.
If we take this as a rough guide to what we are trying to achieve, it is simple to explain what we do as an organisation.
We find and look after potential donors
Our donor recruitment and management teams organise recruitment clinics, we do our best to recruit reliable potential donors, we keep in touch with them in case they are ever a match, we keep records of their tissue-type, we search those records to look for matches, and we take good care of the volunteers who are actually asked to donate.
We analyse and manage our database of tissue-types
Our Histocompatability Laboratories employ over 40 people to provide detailed analyses of blood samples. Blood is tested at various stages by the laboratories - from the initial analysis of blood from volunteer donors to molecular level accuracy required for transplant.
Before it becomes searchable every blood sample from a new volunteer needs to be subjected to detailed analysis and recorded on our database. Our laboratories typed over 20,000 new volunteer donor blood samples in 2006.
We research ways to make transplantation more successful
Our Research Institute works in five teams to help improve the outcome of transplants. This work is outlined in more detail on the pages devoted to its work – but in general terms, research is directed towards :
Immuno-genetics
- improving the classification of tissue types to allow the most accurate identification and matching
Immuno-therapy
enhancing the ability of grafted (transplanted) cells to provide immune-protection for the patient, especially in combating any residual leukaemic cells which have survived the chemotherapy - helping to limit the problems caused by viruses after transplantation
- providing optimum conditions for the rapid multiplication of healthy donor cells
Alloreactivity
- ensuring that donor and patient cells accept each other
Bioinformatics
- curating a World Health Organisation HLA Nomenclature database
- ensuring consistency and documentation of new tissue-types
Immune reconstitution
- investigating the factors that slow down or enhance the regeneration of immune cells in the body after transplantation
- finding ways of enhancing the body’s capacity to replace its own damaged white cells after chemotherapy
- reducing infection in patients, improving our understanding of the critical factors in the transplant
And finally, as a registered charity, we continually rely on the financial support of individuals and organisations to make it all happen.
