Regenerative Therapy Using Blood-Derived Stem Cells

Blood has long been viewed as a conduit for therapy, stemming from the ancient days of phlebotomy to remove evil humors to the development of successful blood transfusions to replace missing blood components. The identification and characterization of hematopoietic stem cells by Drs. Till and McCulloch? revolutionized the field and soon after, non-hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells were characterized from the blood and bone marrow. Some of these cell types and various blood-derived cell lineages are involved in the repair of various types of tissue damage that span the spectrum of medical disorders. The goal of this book is to provide an up-to-date review of the various types of blood-derived cells with regenerative capacity, identify opportunities for intervention by examining specific clinical applications, and recognize the regulatory environment that will encompass future therapies in regenerative medicine.

Dr. David S. Allan is a clinician scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, affiliated with the Blood & Marrow Transplant Program at the University of Ottawa. His research interests focus of fundamental aspects of vascular progenitor biology and on translational studies in the repair of organ toxicity in patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Dr. Dirk Strunk is a clinician scientist with the Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Program and Head of Stem Cell Research at the Medical University of Graz in Austria. His research team develops novel transplantation strategies using mesenchymal stromal cells and endothelial progenitors and has developed animal protein-free methods of cell expansion that facilitate translational studies in humans.