CC BY
15
BECTHMKÎEMATOnOiMM, tomXI, №2, 2015
Evseeva Irina x'2
1 Anthony Nolan (UnitedKingdom), 2WMDA
INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION OF UNRELATED DONOR REGISTRIES
AND CORD BLOOD BANKS
The World Marrow Donor Association (WMDA) is a voluntary organisation of representatives of blood stem cell donor registries, cord blood banks, and other organisations and individuals with an interest in blood stem cell transplantation. It provides a forum for discussion of issues regarding the clinical use of blood stem cells from unrelated donors across international boundaries and for formulation of guidelines on logistics, quality control, ethics, finances, information technology and registry accreditation.
More than 25 million adult unrelated donors and more than half a million Cord Blood Units (CBUs)
are currently listed in the registries worldwide. Using international cooperation more than one million patients received unrelated haematopoieitic stem cell transplantation. The number of transplants grows every year, and patient outcome constantly improves.
The presentation will cover history of the WMDA, its structure, projects and initiatives being currently run in order to harmonise practices and collaboration between the registries. The role of Bone Marrow Donor Worldwide (BMDW) and European Marrow Donor Information System (EM-DIS) will be described.
Yepiskoposyan LNazaretyan M.Avagyan S., Sokourenko E.
ArmGenia Genetic Research Charitable Trust, Institute of Molecular Biology of the NAS, Yerevan, Armenia
MAPPING GENETIC AND CULTURAL ROOTS OF ARMENIANS
Armenians present culturally and geographically isolated population with a unique position within global genetic diversity, historically inhabited a region in the Near East bounded by the Mediterranean and Black seas and the Caucasus.
Armenian alphabet and language belong to independent branch of Indo-European family with distinctive phonological developments.
Geographic location and other factors were possible reasons that saved Armenians from significant mixture with other populations in recent history.
This study was initiated to explore the genetic/ historical/cultural pathways of Armenians by applying novel technologies and anthropological genetic mapping in order to cover existing under-represen-tation of Armenians in population genetics studies and genome-wide analysis.
The study responds to specific research questions regarding genetic and cultural signatures and level of isolation and genetic diversities of Armenians.
Since the insights into the human past envelops diverse areas of human existence, a combination of various methods, including genetic studies of Armenian subjects, population database and admixture analysis have been used for genetic mapping and
preparation of a multilayer «pie», representing anthropological genetics and proven historical, cultural and linguistic data. Results and detailed findings are summarized and presented on the website that can be found at www.armgenia.am.
This study shed a light on the genetic history of the Armenian population and their ancient genetic contacts with other Middle Eastern indigenous populations.
In broad historical context, highlights were articulated on the role the Armenians played in the genetic history of the Middle East and the Armenian Highlands, apparently being a main transition «corridor» for modern humans' migration to Europe both in Paleolithic and Neolithic.
Analysis of mixture of anthropological genetic signals with historical/cultural and linguistic data applications showed strong evidence for the indigenous nature of Armenians. The role of distinctive culture and language resulted in genetic isolation of Armenians from their surroundings.
The future steps of this research is to continue collection of Y chromosome paternal data to ensure the coverage of the whole extent of historical Armenia and to map direct masculine ancestry through-
