POINTS TO CONSIDER 
Non-Technical Abstract 
NON-TECHNICAL ABSTRACT 
Autologous bone marrow transplant is often used to allow higher doses of chemotherapy to be 
given to patients with pediatric cancer. One of the risks of this treatment is that patients are at 
risk of infection and bleeding until the new marrow has grown back. One approach to improving 
the results of such transplants is to preincubate the marrow with growth factors so that the 
infused marrow takes more quickly. If treated marrow takes more quickly we may also be able 
to harvest smaller amounts of marrow in the future. To determine if treatment of marrow with 
growth factors does lead to faster take and also to see if these cells persist long term, we plan 
to compare recovery of two portions of marrow cells; one treated with growth factors and one 
untreated. 
To do this we will mark these two portions of marrow with the neomycin resistance gene in two 
distinguishable vectors. This will allow us to learn how quickly each portion engrafts and how 
long each portion survives in the patient. This information will allow us to learn if this approach 
may be beneficial in shortening aplasia following autologous BMT and thereby reduce the risks 
of the procedure. 
Recombinant DNA Research, Volume 19 
[487] 
