Stem Cell Assay Laboratory
Staff: Helen Nakamoto, Sudhra Chaukla, Corinna Lichota (Co-OP student),
Dr. Connie Eaves (Laboratory Director), Kyi Min Saw, Cheryl Brooke,
Karen Lambie, Marta Taller.
Absent: Dianne Bamford, Dr. Aly Karsan (Acting Medical Director)
The Stem Cell Assay Laboratory has as its main focus the processing, cryopreservation and functional assessment of stem and progenitor cells
present in samples of living tissue.
Most of the current clinical (DAP approved) workload deals with blood and marrow samples on
which standardized diagnostic assays are performed to determine the
frequency of colony-forming cells (CFCs) present, whether the colonies
of mature cells produced appear normal, and whether the generation of
colonies of mature erythroid cells requires the addition of
erythropoietin. These tests
are part of the quality assurance of clinical transplants and aid in the
diagnosis of patients with hematological disorders, particularly
polycythemia vera and some other myeloproliferative diseases where a
loss of erythropoietin-dependence is a feature of their erythroid CFCs.
Serum erythropoietin levels are
also performed on a routine clinical basis to aid in the diagnosis,
treatment and management of patients with these disorders.
All clinical procedures are performed under the supervision of
Dr.
Aly Karsan, the Acting Medical Director with the assistance of
Dr.
Connie Eaves
who is the Laboratory Director.
The staff of this Laboratory also have extensive expertise
and SOPs for live cell banking and cell distribution according to
approved protocols and this Laboratory is also the repository for all
cells collected as part of the recently established Hematology Cell
Bank. In addition they have
an active live mammary tissue banking function and can perform a number
of SOP-based technical procedures including: cell phenotyping,
immunomagnetic cell separation, vector-mediated gene transfer,
quantitative RT-PCR,
and the quantification of very primitive blood progenitors using the
longterm-culture-initiating cell assay.