Allogeneic Hemopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation in Animal Models of Autoimmune Disease

Using animal models for autoimmune diseases, we show that allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (allo BMT) can be used to treat autoimmune diseases and, in addition, provide evidence that autoimmune diseases are stem cell disorders. To apply allo BMT to humans, we have very recently established a new method for allo BMT using cynomolgus monkeys. In this method, bone marrow cells (BMCs) are harvested from the long bones using a “Perfusion Method” (PM) and the whole BMCs are then injected directly into the intra-bone marrow (IBM).