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The Cambridge Blood and Marrow Transplant and Cell
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Therapy Programme is a comprehensive programme.
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It covers the whole of the East of England, and we have
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an outreach service in Ipswich. We do autologous transplants,
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allograft transplants, unrelated CAR-T cell therapy.
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Most recently, we start a paediatric allied transplant programme,
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and we are also developing new and innovative therapies,
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clinical trials, which allow that to be delivered to people locally.
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Here at CUH, we have a large nursing team, which includes
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clinical specialists and over 100 inpatient and day case nurses.
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They support the patient from the beginning of the
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pathway, during their inpatient admission, cell infusion, any
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post-transplant complications, and then upon discharge.
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So we have a team of nine apheresis nurses and they
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will undertake all of the autologous stem cell
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collections and also unrelated donor collections.
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We have had some patient feedback around the donor
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collections, in that they found that pathway quite
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confusing, so on the basis of that and listening to our
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patients, we've implemented a donor nurse role where a
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nurse works across aphresis, collecting the donor cells,
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but also works alongside our clinical nurse specialists within BMT
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so that we've got that smooth pathway.
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The Cambridge Cellular Therapy Laboratory is a large
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laboratory that looks after the stem cell transplants for the
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whole of the East of England. We’re the only regulated laboratory
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in the East of England that can preserve cells for re-infusion.
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We look after the procurement of cells, the testing of cells,
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processing of cells, storage and handling of cells, but also
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the issue and distribution of cells to various different places
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across the world. The majority of our patient cohorts are patients
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that have been diagnosed with a hematological malignancy,
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and the stem cell transplant forms part of their treatment plan.
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We offer both an adult service and a pediatric service
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for the pediatric service, we can provide cord blood
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transplants as well as bone marrow transplants, as well
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as peripheral blood stem collections, as we do for the adult service.
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The bone marrow transplant programme in the paediatric
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part of Cambridge Hospital is very new and it was
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commissioned in 2022, and up to date we’ve done
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15 bone marrow transplants for a variety of conditions
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the majority of which are malignant. So for either
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high risk or relapsed refractory leukaemias and non-malignant
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disease such as aplastic anaemia. One of the most exciting things
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I think, is the fact that there's a Cambridge Children’s Hospital
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in development, with plans to be open within the next few
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years, and the footprint of that hospital means that our bed
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space will expand and our number of transplant cubicles and spaces
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that are suitable for cellular therapy will be three times
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larger than it currently is. We’re really interested
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and excited to be able to collaborate with other
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partners across the UK and the world, whether in an
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academic international research collaboration or
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whether that's with pharmaceutical companies,
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in order to be able to get these treatments into children more
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quickly and provide an excellent standard of care.
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One of the great advantages that we have here in Cambridge
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is our positioning on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus,
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which is the biggest such biomedical campus in Europe.
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And that brings together not only our service
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in the National Health Service to deliver the clinical part of the
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treatment, but also the university where we have
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the generation of potential new treatment for new target.
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And then finally, a lot of potential industry partners
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ranging at all scales from smaller companies to large
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global companies like AstraZeneca, BioNTech,
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and it means that with these industry partners, we have all
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parts of the pipeline available right from the very beginning
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where we conceive of a new target for a new therapy, take
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it through development and manufacture and clinical trials,
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and then potentially even spin out into scaling up with one of these
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large global companies, should they choose to invest.
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In terms of where the service is going, I think the exciting things
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are the expansion of cell therapy services beyond haematology.
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We started to do it already with transplants for multiple sclerosis.
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We're also seeing CAR-T, some IC therapies for
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autoimmune diseases coming along and for non-neumatological
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cancers, but actually what results in a really high quality service
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is the really functional team that we've got here.
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Everybody works really effectively together.
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They are a superb group of people, and they result
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in the really good outcomes that we see in Cambridge.
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I was diagnosed back in 2010 with AML. I had four chemo
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cycles then. Then I was in permanent remission,
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but unfortunately it relapsed back in 2017.
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But luckily I was given the opportunity, that
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option to go to a stem cell transplant. So my sister was
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the donor. The care and the support, the clinicians and the
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doctors, the treatment I got from here; second to none,
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so that, I think is highly commendable. I want to
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share one particular thing; coming down to this unit
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to do my bone marrow and I couldn’t stop crying
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because I was so emotional, because I wasn’t quite sure
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where my journey’s going to lead, a Doctor who is a
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consultant stopped by, I know she was very busy,
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she took me to a side room and she listened to my story and
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broke that down very gently for me to understand how
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successful these treatments are. Once again, that
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reassurance that things are going to get back up for me,
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I've taken that to my heart.
