康盛人生連續3年獲孕媽媽雜誌頒發「至尊媽寶優秀品牌」殊榮

CordLife康盛人生連續三年獲得「至尊媽寶優秀品牌」，足證康盛人生無論在品質管理、技術設備及服務質素均冠絕同儕，能為父母帶來一定的信心。時至今日，CordLife及聯營公司已在全球超過50間醫院，提供臍帶血給接近300個家庭，治療超過50種病症，豐富的經驗充份肯定我們處理及儲存臍帶血的專業技術。

         
有關CordLife所獲之國際證書及獎項，可詳閱:http://www.cordlife.com.hk/tc/國際證書

CordLife康盛人生為大家送上龍年祝福

CordLife康盛人生香港成功獲取AABB最高標準國際認證

Stem cells could offer a future free from insulin injections

'Re-training' immune cells in people with type 1 diabetes reduces the amount of insulin they need to inject, according to a results from a small clinical trial.

The team, led by Dr Yong Zhao of the University of Illinois, USA, used stem cells from the cord blood of healthy donors to 're-educate' patients' faulty immune cells.

'They wake them up and correct their function. The stems cells are like a teacher. The [immune] cells are like a bad student', Dr Zhao explained to the Toronto Star. 'The patients couldn't make any insulin before the treatment. But after the treatment they began to make their own insulin'.

Type 1 diabetes is caused by the patient's own immune system attacking cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. The resulting decrease in insulin production affects the regulation of sugar levels in the blood and may cause organ damage and premature death. Patients must inject insulin on a daily basis to balance their blood glucose level.

The team recruited 15 people with type 1 diabetes from the Jinan Central Hospital in China, with 12 receiving the treatment and the other three making up a control group. The treatment, known as Stem Cell Educator therapy, passes a patient's immune cells over stem cells from a healthy donor for three hours, before putting them back into the patient's bloodstream.

All the patients who received the therapy had higher levels of c-peptide, a by-product of insulin production, 12 weeks after treatment, indicating improved pancreatic cell function. Levels had increased again by 24 weeks, and this increase was maintained at 40 weeks post-treatment.

At the start of the study, six subjects were assessed as having severe diabetes, producing almost no insulin, and six who produced more, but still insufficient amounts of insulin as having moderate diabetes. The results, published in the journal BMC Medicine, showed that the required insulin dose decreased by an average of 38 percent in those with moderate diabetes and 25 percent in those with severe diabetes.

Dr Zhao and his group intend to conduct further trials, with subjects receiving more than one treatment, with the ultimate hope of a future where patients no longer require insulin injections. They are also expanding this research to other autoimmune disorders, and are beginning a clinical trial in people with type 2 diabetes, where the pancreas does produce enough insulin, but liver cells stop responding properly.

Source: BioNews (16th January, 2012)

CordLife全力支持第一屆省港澳圍產醫學高峰論壇2011

CordLife康盛人生全力支持第一屆省港澳圍產醫學高峰論壇2011，是次高峰論壇獲過百位來
自廣東省、香港及澳門的產科及兒科醫生出席。


作為今次論壇的最大贊助商，康盛人生亦邀請了香港瑪麗醫院兒童及青少年科顧問醫生夏修賢出席，並同與會者分享 “臍血幹細胞應用於兒童及成人” 的熱門議題，包括使用自體臍帶血幹細胞治療神經母細胞瘤。

TAG: 臍帶血| 臍帶| 臍帶血移植|

CordLife聖誕心思思 得一賞二

柏金遜病人佳音

現今醫學昌明，器官移植已是一般常見手術，毫不稀奇。不但器官能換，細胞也可以；最普遍的是輸血，所輸者，主要是紅血球（細胞）。血液中還有白血球，但這是不能輸的，因為會引起免疫系統相斥，有致命的風險。全世界的血庫都須用到特別的過濾設備，盡量清理掉白血球，但暫時還未有一個方法能達到百分百。另外一種普及的細胞移植是更換骨髓細胞，在技術方面，這樣做完全沒有問題，但經移植而進入病人的身體後，新來的骨髓細胞會向後者施以攻擊，這現象叫Graft- versus-Host Reaction。

一般來說，除非捐贈者與接受者是孖生兒，否則一定有排斥的問題。避開排斥的方法之一是，選用嬰兒臍帶血中的幹細胞。這些細胞還未能懂得分辨「我」和「非我」，故能乖乖地支持病人的需要。幹細胞是一種「百搭」細胞。將它們移植到胰，它們便會轉為胰細胞；移植到心臟，便能代替衰老的心肌細胞。不過，幹細胞的供應是一個很大的問題。最優質的幹細胞來自胚胎。本來，醫生可以從流產或墮胎過程中取得幹細胞，但這一定會引起道德上的爭議。有沒有一個兩全其美的解決辦法，一方面不會產生排斥，另一方面也不致惹出道德官司？有一個「橫式分化」（Transdifferentiation）的做法，可能可以做到。

在2010年，一組史丹福大學學者發現，若將三個屬於神經細胞的轉錄因子（Transcription Factor）塞入「基質成纖維細胞」，後者便會轉而成為神經細胞（Nature, Vol.463, pp .1035-1041）。在今年6月出版的《美國國家科學院學報》，一組瑞典學者進一步發現，若將三個轉錄因子增加為五個轉錄因子，那些由「基質成纖維細胞」轉變而成的神經細胞，會再而轉成「多巴胺神經細胞」（Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol.108, pp.10343-10348），可用以修補柏金遜病人的神經。

顧小培博士<柏金遜病人佳音> (信報,10月10日)