Bone marrow model

A new model showing how sickle cell blood cells operate within bone marrow has been developed by researchers at Imperial College London. The developers hope that it will eventually be used by clinicians to advance more effective treatments for sickle cell disease.

This disease causes red blood cells to become misshapen and rigid, meaning that they cannot move as easily around the body as normal flexible red blood cells. When the cells are travelling through tiny vessels, they get stuck and create blockages. This prevents the supply of oxygen to tissue, which leads to severe pain and can cause organ failure.

The model under development at Imperial mimics the movement of oxygen and all the cells in the bone marrow. Ultimately, this should make it possible to analyse how the cells would react to different drugs. Examining the living bone marrow that produces blood cells is difficult because currently it can only be looked at through very invasive surgery.