Against daily news articles on COVID-19’s impact and possible new treatments or vaccines, it can be very hard to get a clear picture of the research landscape around the virus. Here Anthony Nolan’s Dr Jonathan Kay summarises the medical research underway to improve our understanding of COVID-19 and examines how it affects patients with blood cancer. Jonathan also talks about IMPACT’s COVID-19 clinical trial for stem cell transplant patients which is part funded by Anthony…
Can certain donor genes protect AML patients from infections after a stem cell transplant?
Anthony Nolan is proud to facilitate three stem cell transplants a day. Though they give patients a vital second chance of life, they can also lead to severe post-transplant complications including relapse, graft vs host disease (GvHD) and infections. But what if we could identify specific genes in the donor which help reduce the risk…
Reducing the risk of infection from cosmetic products and toiletries after your stem cell transplant
In this blog, our Science Communications Manager, Jonathan Kay, looks at how make-up products could cause infections post-transplant and the steps you can take to help reduce the risk. Picking up an infection is an understandable and realistic concern for all stem cell transplant patients because it can take some time for their donor’s stem…
‘I had CAR T-cell therapy after my stem cell transplant’ – Scott’s story
Scott was the 9th patient in the UK to participate in a CAR T-cell therapy trial, following a relapse from Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). Scott shares with us how this treatment option became available, what led to this decision and how it was successful for his ‘dream outcome’ of remission. CAR T-cell therapy has been…
Making the perfect match even better for stem cell transplant recipients
After new findings from Anthony Nolan’s Patient/Donor project have been published, Jonathan from our Patient Services team looks at how new technology is helping us understand what the best possible match now looks like, and what this means for future patients. At Anthony Nolan, we use our stem cell register of over 700,000 people to…
Fusing blood cells together to treat leukaemia more effectively
Jonathan in our patient services team discusses emerging treatments for cancer, using cell therapy and new ‘super cells’. When developing a new cancer treatment, one of the most important things to consider is how well it can be tolerated by patients. Often the amount of drug that can be given is limited by the side…