This year marks the 49th anniversary of the City of Hope bone marrow transplant program, which was conceived and developed by Ernest Beutler and Karl Blume in 1975, with help and inspiration from E. Donnall Thomas, the 1990 Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine.
The first transplant in our program was performed on May 18, 1976, on a 29-year-old man with acute myeloid leukemia who did not respond to initial treatment and then received bone marrow cells from his HLA-matched sibling. In mid-March of this year, the program performed its 20,000th transplant procedure, treating a 51-year-old man with AML with stem cells obtained from a matched unrelated donor who was identified through the network of international unrelated donor registries.
In between those two dates, separated by nearly five decades of care and research, the program has grown tremendously in size and depth. In that first year, we performed six transplants for patients with advanced leukemia. We now perform more than 750 per year, helping to cure people suffering from the full spectrum of hematologic malignancies including acute leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma, myelodysplastic syndromes, chronic myeloid leukemia, and myeloproliferative disorders, as well as nonmalignant diseases such as aplastic anemia and inherited disorders of the marrow such as sickle cell and thalassemia. In 2022, we reported the cure of HIV in an older man who had AML who was also living with HIV. He is now more than two years leukemia- and HIV-free—just the fifth such case ever documented.
In 1976, we could only use marrow stem cells donated from fully matched siblings, which limited who could undergo the procedure. Today, we have successfully crossed the HLA barrier so that cells from unrelated donors can be used for the benefit of patients. Advances now enable us to also use half-matched family members as donors.
What was once a therapy limited to the young has, through a series of research trials at City of Hope and other programs in the U.S. and around the world, evolved into a treatment that can be used to cure people in their seventies, and now even in their eighties. Age is no longer a barrier for transplant and potential cure.
In 1976, we could only use marrow stem cells donated from fully matched siblings, which limited who could undergo the procedure. Today, we have successfully crossed the HLA barrier so that cells from unrelated donors can be used for the benefit of patients.
In many ways, the cures we have achieved for patients in the City of Hope program are not just institutional, but also an achievement of the field. We learn not only from our own work, but also from the research of our colleagues, and apply it to those who entrust us to care for them.
Funding in the U.S. for this essential research has historically come from the system of strict peer review at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Without such funding, progress would be painfully slow, and lives would be lost.
On May 2, 2025, we will celebrate with our patients, their families, and our staff the 49th anniversary of our program with a grand picnic on the lawn in front of our hospital. Along with our patients and their families, there will be entertainment and, as is tradition, a special guest from the Los Angeles Dodgers. It is a moment when we pause to celebrate the courage of our patients, grateful for their trust, the accomplishments in this field, and an institution that makes this treatment a reality for all of them. At the first reunion at City of Hope in 1977, there was one patient, with his family, doctors, and nurses. The cake held one candle.
From the first day, it has been a journey of hope. And after the reunion picnic, we will do what we do every day: go back to the bedside and the laboratory so that the numbers of people we can cure will continue to grow.
To learn about more innovations in oncology, listen to City of Hope’s new podcast, “On the Edge of Breakthrough: Voices of Cancer Research.” Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and at cityofhope.org/edge-of-breakthrough.
City of Hope® is one of the largest and most advanced cancer research and treatment organizations in the U.S., with its National Medical Center named top 5 in the nation for cancer by U.S. News & World Report. To learn more about City of Hope, visit: www.cityofhope.org.
