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Editorial |
More than twenty years ago, Curt I. Civin, M.D. made a commitment to his pediatric leukemia patients, patients whose futures were tenuous at best. Dr. Civin's memories of twenty years ago, when most children who came into his office would die from their disease, continue to inspire his research to this day. This commitment to his patients resulted in his personal pursuit of the elusive stem cell. A cell that, at one time, most researchers deemed impossible to isolate.
Believing the stem cell to be the key to giving patients higher, more effective doses of chemotherapy while offsetting potentially life-threatening complications, Dr. Civin was determined to find a way to separate this cell from the rest of the bone marrow.
"It seemed like this experiment was fraught with the possibility of failure," he admitted. In spite of funding difficulties from incredulous grant reviewers, Dr. Civin's hard work and persistence paid off when his laboratory identified a monoclonal antibody, which they called CD34, that had a high specificity and affinity for stem cells enabling their separation from the rest of marrow cells. His discovery has been pivotal, not only to the treatment of cancer, but of all diseases that affect the blood and bone marrow.
Dr. Civin holds the King Fahd Professorial Chair of Pediatric Oncology, is Professor of Pediatrics and Oncology and Director of Pediatric Oncology at the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center. Dr. Civin has utilized the human-mouse chimera assay to quantify the in vivo engraftment of human stem/progenitor cells and leukemia, is advancing the isolation, expansion, and gene transduction of human lymphohematopoietic stem and progenitor cells, and is using gene transduction and in vivo assay techniques to explore the molecular biology of leukemogenesis.
Dr. Civin's pioneering research discoveries have been recognized with awards that are as numerous as they are global. Most recently in 1999, the Intellectual Property Owners Association bestowed upon him its coveted Inventor of the Year Award. It is a wonderful coincidence that, in December of 1999, the journal Science announced that "the ability to isolate and maintain human pluripotent stem cells in culture offers humanity incredibly exciting possibilities, [hence]...these achievements...are recognized as Science's Breakthroughs of the Year" [1].
It is for these reasons and many personal ones, that the publisher and editorial board of STEM CELLS take pride and pleasure in announcing Dr. Curt I. Civin as the Journal's new Editor-in-Chief. One of Dr. Civin's first appointments has been the naming of Dr. Alan M. Gewirtz, Professor of Medicine and Pathology and Leader of the Stem Cell Biology and Therapeutics Program at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, as Associate Editor for North America, the position that Dr. Civin held prior to his appointment to Editor-in-Chief. Dr. Gewirtz joins his fellow associate editors: Dr. Dieter Hoelzer (Europe), Dr. Donald Metcalf (Australia) and Dr. Fumimaro Takaku (Far East). Dr. Martin J. Murphy, Jr., STEM CELLS's founding editor, undertakes new responsibilities as the Journal's executive editor with responsibility to broaden the Journal's worldwide impact and outreach in its print and new online editions (www.StemCells.com).
STEM CELLS has earned an enviable reputation amongst the world's outstanding medical research journals, consistently ranking in the top twentieth percentile of high impact journals reporting on basic and applied cancer research. With the leadership of Dr. Civin and Dr. Gewirtz, in concert with the other dedicated associate editors, editorial board and Comité des Sages, the Journal is in most capable hands. We embrace a common mission to patients whose catastrophic illnesses have robbed them of hope. Research is the only way to generate renewed hope, and the speedy promulgation of the best peer-reviewed research is the pledge which we share in common and which we take most earnestly.
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