The long wait for various facilities needed for bone-marrow transplant and other cell therapies will come to an end with VHB’s state-of-the –art facilities opening here in the last quarter of 2010.
“There has been a strong demand from the public in Qatar since long for a facility that can provide regenerative medicine. HMC has also been keen to establish a Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) laboratory to augment its available facilities for bone-marrow transplant since long. With VHB’s facilities opening here in late 2010, GMP lab will become available- making our stride to have regenerative medicine in Qatar shorter,” Nish Patel, Executive Director, Women’s Hospital told The Peninsula.
Earlier, Al Amal Hospital had announced setting up an independent stem cell bank or the Cell Therapy Unit is part of establishing a world class GMP laboratory and storage facility mainly intended for bone marrow storage. With VHB becoming national stem-cell bank for Qatar, HMC will work closer with VHB.
The stem cells, taken from the blood in the umbilical cord, can renew themselves through cell division and differentiate into specialised cell types. Today, 85 diseases can be treated using cord blood. Sickle cell anaemia and thalassaemia can be completely cured using cell therapy.
“Cell therapy or regenerative medicine for people in this region, using stem cells from people in North America or UK, necessarily may not be helpful. This is due to the difference in genome type. So having our own centre here can help the establishment of stem-cell researches specific to the gene pool in the region and help fight against region specific diseases in a better way.”
“HMC will not have to start from the scratch for cell therapies, and take a positive step forward with VHB,” he said.