November-December 2011

Science & Medicine

November-December 2011

November 30, 2011

This issue:

Surprises at the New York MPN Symposium…. New Target for Therapy: The Blood-Bone niche…. How I was diagnosed with ET…. Columnists: Arch… Patricia… and now introducing Harvey Gould.

(To reach any article just click on the boldface RED title in the Contents section, below.)

Slide show features: Dr. Richard Silver, Dr. Jerry Spivak, Firefighter Ellen Jacquart, Drs. Ruben Mesa & Srdan Verstovsek, David Alexander, Dr. Tiziano Barbui, Harvey Gould, Esq., and Joe and Bonnie Evans.

Think you’re busy these days?

Let us take you to a couple of worlds that are really jammed.. .… Subway trains rumbled under the streets of New York City as taxi, horse and limo swarmed toward November’s big Symposium that brought MPN patients together with heavyweight hematologists…see Silver, Barbui, Spivak, Verstovsek, Mesa, Hoffman go head to head on therapies and future directions..(Plus answers to practical questions: Is hydroxyurea leukemogenic after all?…Is MPN cancer?…How often should bone marrow biopsies be done?)… It’s all in the report, NYC goes MPD…. And talk of busy, have a look at the teeming factory floor of blood production – deep in the marrow itself — where stem cells produce half a trillion blood cells a day, including our mutant clone(s): It’s the Blood-Bone Stem Cell Niche, our Special Science report and one of MPN’s newest targets.

…..Then there’s the secret behind our false potassium readings as revealed by busy firefighter Ellen Jacquart. This is an all too familiar story about how a bad diagnosis led to a good conclusion: How I was diagnosed with ET

…at last, here’s our parade of internationally famed columnists, Dr. Arch with his special take on the MPN/MPD lists and on being and not being a doctor …Patricia Wagner introducing us to new mindfulness with the help of deep experience and a Jon-Kabat Zinn video… joined this issue by Harvey Gould launching his new column The Long and Winding Road. Finally, in our back pages, there’s the call for caregiver stories… details of the MPN Research Foundation conference in West Palm Beach, Florida…. and three ways you can join the Forum. .

Jeremy and Mike are taking a break this month, so you can too. .. Kick back, relax, read, look and comment. MPNforum is a free on-line magazine for the whole MPN community…so if you find something you think a fellow MPN patient should know, you’re welcome to send a copy or post it to your list or Facebook page.

(To access story, click on the red link.)

Feature story

NYC Goes MPD — heavyweight hematologists go head to head by Zhenya Senyak