A Michigan organ donor has made history and saved the life of a 68-year-old woman from Flint, Mich. Suffering from leukemia, she needed an urgent bone marrow transplant and is now the first person in the world to ever successfully receive one from a deceased human donor.
Gift of Life Michigan began collaborating with Ossium Health, a clinical-stage bioengineering company from San Francisco, in 2018. Ossium has pioneered a novel approach to bone marrow transplants to treat blood cancers and other life-threatening blood disorders. Together the organizations have worked to provide bone marrow from deceased organ donors who have already been screened and deemed eligible for donation.
Patients needing bone marrow transplants typically rely on living stem cell donors. Seventy percent of patients who need a transplant don’t have a donor match in their family. The ability to utilize a match from a deceased donor could save many lives.
“This groundbreaking trial provides hope to so many who have been looking for a match,” said Dorrie Dils, president and CEO, Gift of Life Michigan. “We are proud to work with an innovative organization like Ossium that aligns with our efforts to honor life through donation.”
Through the collaboration, Gift of Life screens organ donors to determine eligibility for bone marrow donation using Ossium’s process, then recovers the vertebrae from eligible donors and ships them to Ossium for processing. Ossium’s production and cryopreservation (freezing) processes ensure the cells maintain high functionality through storage at an ultra-low temperature.
The organ donor cells were made available through the HOPE compassionate program – an initiative by Ossium Health that gives patients around the world access to Ossium’s bone marrow. The patient, who received her transplant from Henry Ford Health, was undergoing chemotherapy that would not cure her leukemia. Her doctors agreed the bone marrow transplant was her best chance of survival.
Last year Gift of Life screened 331 donors for Ossium and recovered vertebrae from 71 donors, earning Ossium’s award for Top Recovery Partner of the Year. Each donor has the potential to provide multiple doses of bone marrow, possibly saving multiple lives.
The best way to save lives is by joining the Michigan Organ Donor Registry. To register or learn more about the donation process, visit giftoflifemichigan.org.
