Seven months ago, after hav­ing smol­der­ing myeloma for 10 years, I crossed over into the ‘active’ dis­ease category. Thankfully, there was no dramatic myeloma defining event, just a painful bone mar­row biopsy that showed 60 per­cent plasma cells. How long I have been at 60 per­cent, I have no idea, which makes the de­ci­sion to proceed with treat­ment a dif­fi­cult one for me.

Back in March, when Covid-19 was start­ing to grip my region, my doctor agreed that it would be prudent to hold off on treat­ment, as Seattle was in the …

• Human trials begin to­day in California using Celularity's CYNK-001 inves­ti­ga­tional immuno­therapy as part of a national clin­i­cal trial that will en­roll approx­i­mately 86 adults who tested COVID-19 pos­i­tive
• CYNK-001 is the only cryo­pre­served allo­geneic, off-the-shelf NK cell ther­apy devel­oped from pla­cen­tal hema­to­poietic stem cells.

Warren, NJ (Press Release) – Celularity an­nounced to­day that the first patient was dosed in a Phase I/II study of human pla­cen­tal hema­to­poietic stem cell derived NK cells (CYNK-001) for the treat­ment of adults with COVID-19 as part of a national clin­i­cal trial. The patient was treated at UC Irvine in California, the first CA site to open for patient en­roll­ment with sup­port from a COVID-19 Project grant awarded to Celularity by the California In­sti­tute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). Par­tic­i­pat­ing trial sites in­clude …

The cur­rent coro­na­virus pan­dem­ic has made some­thing apparent to me: assessing my personal risk level for Covid-19 is complicated, and assessing our “collective risk” may be impossible.

It’s been four months since Covid-19 became a house­hold word and we entered a state of temporary lockdown. As we gathered supplies and made arrangements to work from home, I thought, this isn’t so bad! When else have we had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to stay at home and relax to­geth­er?

I had my mother come down to stay with us so that she wouldn’t be lonely and …

Oxford, United Kingdom (Press Release) – In March 2020, the RECOVERY (Ran­domised Eval­u­a­tion of COVid-19 thERapY) trial was estab­lished as a ran­domised clin­i­cal trial to test a range of poten­tial treat­ments for COVID-19, in­clud­ing low-dose dexa­meth­a­sone (a steroid treat­ment). Over 11,500 patients have been en­rolled from over 175 NHS hos­pi­tals in the UK.

On 8 June, recruitment to the dexa­meth­a­sone arm was halted since, in the view of the trial Steering Com­mit­tee, suf­fi­cient patients had been en­rolled to estab­lish whether or not the drug had …

Sometimes you can teach old dogs new tricks, and other times those old dogs just need to remember the tricks they already know.

I have been living with mul­ti­ple myeloma for over five years, and trust me when I say that I am very grateful for this time. My gratefulness for life is hard to put into words. I love getting up in the morn­ing and realizing that I am looking down at the green grass. That is tre­men­dous and never taken for granted.

That is not to say, how­ever, that life …

Like a cabinet door left open, the outside world is calling me. To be honest, I’m surprised that I haven’t felt it before now. Towards the end of Feb­ru­ary, con­cerns about COVID-19 were being discussed in the media. Shortly there­after, the first case of the dis­ease was found in the U.S. By the first week of March, my hus­band Daniel and I entered a self-imposed quar­an­tine, which was welcome news to Daniel’s myeloma spe­cialist, who was advising her patients to isolate them­selves as much as possible.

Our county issued stay-at-home restrictions on …

It’s been a long winter here in the foothills of the mountains. How­ever, since my last column in April, spring has sprung. We can finally enjoy gardening, walking outdoors without winter clothes on, and generally see the season unfold.

This year has been dif­fer­en­t though. The merriness of seeing the flowers and greenery of spring is subdued by the fact of being many weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a time of un­cer­tainty, worry, and even tragedy for some. It is reassuring to see that the seasons are still progressing as …