Mayo Clinic to Open New Stem Cell Lab

Mayo Clinic’s satellite provider in Arizona has plans to construct and open a new laboratory for prepping tissue for bone-marrow-based stem cell transplants. The Phoenix-based Mayo Clinic is one of the busiest stem cell transplant providers in the Southwest. It performs more than 200 adult procedures annually, plus another 30 pediatric transplants in conjunction with Phoenix Children’s Hospital. Processing for stem cell transplantation includes a variety of laboratory procedures. Among them are removal or enrichment of specific cell populations, cryopreservation, and thawing and preparation of progenitor cells for infusion into the patient. The number of bone marrow transplants in the United States has been growing steadily. More than 30,000 are performed per year nationwide, triple the figure from the late 1990s. The five-year survival rates for lymphoma and leukemia patients who undergo the procedure are about 10 percentage points higher than compared to those patients only undergoing chemotherapy. Physicians affiliated with the Mayo Clinic said in a statement that the new lab will operate at an increased processing capacity, improve turnaround times, and provide the potential for research-related activities, including those in the field of regenerative medicine. The 6,200-square-foot laboratory is set to open in the summer of 2014. Jim McVeigh, a Mayo spokesman, was unable to provide cost of construction or current laboratory volumes and projections after the new facility opens. Takeaway: The increase of exotic procedures such as bone marrow stem cell transplants is driving demand for new laboratory space.