I read this announcement and immediately invested in CYP. I know...

I read this announcement and immediately invested in CYP. I know that personal bias should not be a reason for an investment decision, but I understand more than anyone the difficulties and failures of stem cell harvesting and transplant. My older brother was diagnosed three years ago with a rare bone marrow disease. I was asked to be tested as a potential donor. I tested as a match. However things went sour very quickly when I realised I had been lied to about the procedure which my brother told me was a single, simple blood donation. I was over 60, female, and upon requesting more information, learned that it would involve potentially 2 or 3 'harvests', wherein I would be given shots of a drug for 7 days to stop my stem cell production. I would not be allowed to be alone during this time due to potential side effects such as ruptured spleen. After 7 days, when the drug administration ceases, the healthy body goes into overdrive to product missing stem cells. Harvesting from an older person is not easy, and is usually done over a six hour period where a vein in the neck is accessed and blood is filtered continuously to remove stem cells. After this, donors have complained of ongoing fatigue that lasts weeks or months and often from older donors not enough is harvested so they are asked to go through it again. The only study I could find of older family donors said that there have been 5 recorded deaths of older familial donors. Most clinics and doctors do not track the health of family donors after the donation, unlike voluntary donors on the Registry who receive ongoing monitoring.

No one knows if the drug used will lead to health problems in donors many years down the tracks. In the end my brother didn't live long enough to get a transplant, but my family turned on me for questioning whether this was something I could or should do. I have since been cut off from my entire birth family. No one should ever be faced with a decision such as I was forced to make. I knew that eventually stem cell manufacturing would progress but had no idea we were this close. Fingers crossed that it progresses rapidly and the old harvesting methods will become obsolete.