The History of the Bone Marrow Transplant

Origins and Early Successes

Pioneering work on the first bone marrow transplant research was conducted from the 1950s through the '70s by E. Donnall Thomas at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Thomas later received a Nobel Prize for his work. It was Thomas who found that injecting bone marrow cells into the bloodstream could repopulate the bone marrow and even produce more blood cells. In 1968, the first successful human bone marrow transplant was performed by Dr. Robert A. Good at the University of Minnesota.

There are several terms used to describe bone marrow transplants. Several of these terms include hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, bone marrow transplant, stem cell transplant, peripheral blood stem cell transplant, and blood cell transplant.

Various researchers and doctors have been awarded Nobel Prizes for their work in the field of bone marrow transplants. In 1980, the prize went to Jean Dausset, Baruj Benacerraf and George D. Snell for their pioneering work in understanding human leukocyte antigens, or HLA antigens. The understanding of HLA antigens is crucial to performing safe blood transfusions. HLA antigens are used by the body to determine which cells belong in the body and which must be destroyed by the immune system. Ten years later, in 1990, Dr. E. Donnall Thomas was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his role in pioneering transplants, and contributing to research for experimental techniques used in bone marrow transplantation.

The most crucial part of the bone marrow transplant process is having a large pool of donors to draw from. Registries were conceived in 1970 when Professor Dr. Jon J. van Rood proposed a listing of all HLA-typed volunteer blood transfusion donors at a meeting of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Bluttransfusion.
However, it took four years before the first bone marrow donor registry was set up, which was the Anthony Nolan Trust, United Kingdom. Today, a web-based search engine like Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide can be utilized to search for donors from 42 countries worldwide.

Bone marrow transplants can benefit patients who suffer from a range of diseases. The majority of patients seeking this kind of transplant are battling diseases like leukemia, lymphoma or multiple myeloma. In addition, patients with immune deficiency disorders, sickle cell, or aplastic anemia have found some relief from the treatment.