3 ms·

This appears to be a transfusion of mature blood cells derived from donor CD34+ hematopoietic stem cells, and it sounds like they're able to collect usable numb

This appears to be a transfusion of mature blood cells derived from donor CD34+ hematopoietic stem cells, and it sounds like they're able to collect usable numbers of stem cells from a regular unit of whole blood... but how? People normally don't have a whole lot of stem cells in the peripheral circulation (if they did, they'd have leukemia). For the purpose of stem cell transplantation, the donor is given medications to mobilize stem cells from the bone marrow before collection. I'm sure they're present in very small numbers in the blood, and perhaps they could be cultured in the lab, but even stem cells become exhausted eventually. This is the innovation, probably.

tait 4y ago
The number of circulating CD34+ cells varies by individual, and by age. I volunteered for an unstimulated collection when we were validating the process of stem cell collection at my work. I was at the upper limit of normal, but I technically had enough in CD34+ cells in my circulation to do a transplant even without stimulation, and I was in my early 30s at the time. A single CD34+ cell can probably make a lot of RBCs. (Ok, to be pedantic, I'm not 100 percent sure they are really CD34+ cells, I was taught that CD34+ is a marker for myeloblasts, and the cell population you would probably want are the CD34- hematogones as they are self-replenishing. The article didn't seem to say either way).