Bone Marrow – Pooja Khandelwal, MD, Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics, Cincinnati Children's Hospital – An Informative Discussion on the Important Functions of Bone Marrow and Bone Marrow Transplants for Hard-to-treat Diseases
Finding Genius Podcast
Richard Jacobs
4.4 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2020
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Pooja Khandelwal, MD, Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics and Member, Division of Bone Marrow Transplantation and Immune Deficiency, discusses bone marrow, gut health, and their work at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.
Podcast Points:
- What conditions require a bone marrow transplant?
- What is bone marrow?
- How does the intestinal microbiome develop?
As a principal investigator at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Dr. Khandelwal has a keen interest in acute graft versus host disease biology, the treatment of steroid refractory acute graft versus host disease, and management of refractory autoimmune cytopenias in the post-transplant setting. Her work is often focused on pediatric bone marrow transplantation and blood diseases.
Dr. Khandelwal discusses acute graft versus host disease that can occur after a transplant. She provides some data on the number of bone marrow transplants, stating that approximately 10,000 patients annually go through the procedure in the United States alone. She explains how it can be a curative modality for diseases that are either hard to treat or that have returned after remission.
Dr. Khandelwal provides some detailed information on bone marrow, explaining how it is a fascinating organ. As she states, bone marrow is a living organ in our bones that produces all the cells that make up our blood—white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets. From carrying oxygen to the core of our immune system, to other crucial functions, our bone marrow is responsible for originating many important elements that are critical to our body's health.
Dr. Khandelwal discusses matching immune systems, and the factors. She discusses proteins and the matches between recipients and donors. Further, Dr. Khandelwal explains the actual process of how bone marrow transplants work from a technical perspective.
She discusses how sophisticated the bone marrow is, and how it knows where it needs to go after transplanting it. The research doctor explains how chemotherapy is often used to eradicate a recipient's current bone marrow to make room for the new, healthy bone marrow.
Continuing, Dr. Khandelwal explains the changes within intestinal microbiome over time, in transplantation. She discusses where disruption happens, and how they can restore the beneficial bacteria to patients' bodies. Additionally, she provides information on how the intestinal microbiome is formed, and how human milk allows for the initial growth of an intestinal microbiome that can allow healthy systems to flourish.
Wrapping up, Dr. Khandelwal discusses the future of transplants, and some of her perspectives on personalized medicine.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Forget frequently asked questions common sense common knowledge or Google how about advice from a real genius |
| 0:06.8 | 95% of people in any profession are good enough to be qualified and licensed 5% go and beyond. They become very good at what they do. |
| 0:15.1 | But only 0.1% are real Jesus. |
| 0:18.4 | Richard Jacobs has made it his life's mission to find them for you. |
| 0:22.4 | He hunts down and interviews geniuses in every field, |
| 0:25.2 | sleep science, cancer, stem cells, ketogenic diets, and more. Here come the geniuses. |
| 0:30.4 | This is the Finding Genius Podcast that is Richard Jacobs. |
| 0:35.0 | Richard Jacobs with the Finding Genius Podcast. |
| 0:41.0 | My guest today is Pooja Kondowal. She's a principal investigator at Cincinnati Children's |
| 0:45.7 | Hospital. She's looking at studies of the gut, the virus, the fungal, the microbiome, in a situation called acute graft versus host disease. |
| 0:56.2 | So life-threatening complication after a bone marrow transplant. |
| 0:59.8 | So we're going to talk about that. |
| 1:01.4 | And Budja, thanks for coming. How you doing? |
| 1:03.0 | Thank you so much for having me. I'm doing well. How are you? |
| 1:06.0 | Doing well. So how often do people get bone marrow transplants, like how prevalent does it in the US and then around the world? |
| 1:13.2 | About 10,000 patients annually undergo a bone marrow transplantation in the United States |
| 1:20.3 | and probably a similar number or perhaps a little bit higher in other parts of the world. |
| 1:27.0 | So it's not a terribly common occurrence, however, it is a curative modality for a lot of life-threatening underlying |
| 1:38.6 | diseases such as cancers, specifically leukemia's that are hard to treat or, you know, have gone into remission, but then they come back. |
| 1:48.0 | And additional diseases such as immune deficiencies or disorders of the hemoglobin such as sickle cell anemia. |
| 1:57.3 | So yeah, and what conditions require a bone marrow transplant? |
| 2:01.7 | So bone marrow is essentially a very fascinating |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Richard Jacobs, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Richard Jacobs and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.