BONE MARROW TRANSPLANTATION

 Head of Department: Prof. Reuven Or

Tel: 972-2-6776561

Fax: 972-2-6422731

E-mail: reuvenor@hadassah.org.il

STAFF

Associate Professor

Reuven Or, M.D. Head of Department:

Lecturer:

Michael Shapira, M.D.

Staff members:

Igor Resnick, M.D.

Irena Zilberman, M.D.

Svetlana Miron, M.D.

Menachem Bitan, M.D.

Alexander Lebovich, M.D.

Benny Gesundheit, M.D.

Luba Yoffe, M.D.

Researchers:

L. Weiss. Ph.D.

S. Morecki, Ph.D.

O. Gurevich, Ph.D.

M. Zeira, Ph.D.

G. Elkin, Ph.D.

T. Prighozina, Ph.D.

A. Abdel-Hai, Ph.D.

Y. Kassir, Ph.D.

A. Dagan, Ph.D. 

A. Gazit, Ph.D.  

T. Zilberstein, Ph.D.

B.G. Kurkalli. Ph.D. student   

INTRODUCTION

The Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation (BMT) at Hadassah University Hospital serves as Israel's National BMT center.  Presently, approximately 150 BMT procedures are carried out yearly, including autologous and allogeneic bone marrow, blood stem cells and cord blood transplantation procedures for patients with a variety of non-malignant disorders, hematological malignancies and solid tumors.  Likewise, the department is involved in cell therapy for a large variety of marrow deficiency diseases (e.g., aplastic anemia); immune deficiencies (e.g., severe combined immunodeficiency); genetic diseases (e.g., thalassemia major, Gaucher’s disease, etc.) and gene therapy (e.g., adhesion deaminase deficiency).   The BMT Department operates in conjunction with the Cell Therapy and Cancer Immunobiology Research Center, and the Danny Cunniff Leukemia Research Center, which are all involved in basic and clinically oriented research. 

The Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation has pioneered clinical applications of BMT in Israel. Research activities include adoptive cellular immunotherapy of cancer and tumor cell vaccination, new approaches for autologous and allogeneic BMT, focusing on induction transplantation tolerance to bone marrow and organ allografts, using reduced intensity conditioning and understanding the mechanisms of unresponsiveness, induction of self-tolerance in autoimmune diseases, as well as developing new approaches for enhancing hematopoietic and immunological reconstitution following BMT.

Topics currently under investigation at the Immunobiology Research Laboratory include: (1) Induction and mechanisms of transplantation tolerance; (2) development of new approaches in cancer immunotherapy by amplification of host's adoptive and natural anti-tumor effector mechanisms; utilizing cell-mediated adoptive immunotherapy and development of tumor cell vaccines; (3) enhancement of immunohematopoietic reconstitution following BMT using biological response modifiers and recombinant cytokines; (4) development of strategies for new therapeutic interventions in autoimmune disorders by reinduction of unresponsiveness towards self; (5) gene therapy; and (6) stem cell plasticity.

The BMT Department has a positively pressurized GMP-like Cell Therapy Center; a large cryopreservation unit; a leukopheresis and lymphopheresis unit for cellular adoptive immunotherapy; cord blood bank; and cryopreservation of peripheral blood stem cells, and is in charge of the Research Animal Facility at the Ullman building.  Services include outpatient clinics for BMT candidates and recipients and a Cancer Immunotherapy Clinic focusing on recombinant cytokines for induction of anti-tumor responses in patients with cancer at the stage of minimal residual disease. 

RESEARCH AREAS