The laboratory underpins our long-established integrated haematology cellular therapy service, supporting the Great North Children’s Hospital and the Northern Centre for Cancer Care with the storage and processing of stem cell products for transplant.
The team provides treatment for adults and children from all over the UK, supporting patients who have immunological deficiencies, inherited diseases, haematological disorders and blood or solid cancers.
The site receives and processes over 300 patient transplants every year, performing routine cryopreservation alongside more complex specialist procedures.
Our transplant programme is one of the largest in the UK, on average cryopreserving and storing 1000 new donated cell units each year.
Specialist procedures
- CD34+selection
- Red cell depletion and mononuclear cell preparation
- TCRαβ+ and CD19+ depletion
- CD45RA+depletion
As one of the only centres in the UK to offer the CD45RA+ depletion, we help patients gain access to unique cell-based treatments.
Combined with the TCRαβ+ this innovative treatment pathway is innovative and demonstrates exceptional results for post-transplant opportunistic infections when compared to alternative drug-based therapies.
The paediatric service is one of only two supra-regionally commissioned services in the UK for transplanting children with primary immunodeficiency and related disorders.
Islet isolation service
As a multidisciplinary team, we are of the few UK centres to offer total pancreatectomy islet isolation autologous transplantation as a clinical service.
The cell, gene and tissue laboratory isolate insulin-producing islet cells from pancreatic tissue, which are then transplanted back into the patient, reducing the dependency on insulin-based treatments post-surgery.
