By Hillary Copsey, TCPalm.com
July 16, 2010
TRADITION — Treasure Coast residents’ white blood cells could help make flu shots more effective — or even find a cure for HIV.
Martin Memorial Health Systems and Florida Blood Centers are working with local volunteers to supply the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute of Florida with regular shipments of white blood cells. The cells are the immune system building blocks needed for many of the experiments being conducted at the VGTI Florida researchers, working in labs at Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies.
The researchers use the cells as controls — the gauge from which “normal” response is calculated — that are needed for any experiment. They infect the cells, manipulate them and break them down into even smaller parts, some of which only are found in one of every million white blood cells.
“We need huge quantities of cells ... It’s the only way we can answer the questions in humans,” said Lydie Trautmann, a VGTI Florida researcher. “It’s really the basis of our research.”
The white blood cells are taken from a volunteer each week through a process called leukapheresis. The process is similar to giving blood, except blood drawn from one arm goes back into the body through the other arm after the white blood cells are removed.
The process takes just the white blood cells circulating in that spot, in that moment. Because the cells regenerate rapidly and the process leaves most of the body’s white blood cells, the donor’s immune system is not compromised.
“They shouldn’t notice any change,” said Wendy Ryzner, clinical research site supervisor for Martin Memorial Health Systems.
Martin Memorial finds and screens the volunteers, who must sign a consent form and meet basic criteria. They need to be between age 18 and 60, healthy and not taking any medications that affect their immune system. They cannot have donated blood within the last eight weeks.
If an initial blood screen comes back clear, the volunteer spends about four hours at Florida Blood Center in Stuart going through leukapheresis and earns $150 for their time. Right now, the center is handling one donor a week.
Once collected, the cells are sent to VGTI Florida, where scientists process and catalog them. Researchers have just enough information about the donors to provide context for experiments: age, gender and, sometimes, race. Though some cells are used immediately, most are frozen for later experiments.
VGTI Florida is working with Martin Memorial to provide other, more specific samples, including blood from HIV patients for researchers’ work on a vaccine for the sexually transmitted virus. This fall — as last year — researchers will need samples from people who receive the seasonal flu vaccine or are sick with the flu virus. Other HIV studies could require healthy cervical tissue.
But the collection of healthy white blood cells is ongoing and, for VGTI Florida, a never-ending need.
“We always have to have controls,” said John Schatzle, VGTI Florida’s manager of scientific affairs. “As long as we’re here, we’re going to have a need for these samples.”