Dr. Amit Rauthan, BMT doctor; Dr. Pooham Patil, head of oncology/women; and Dr. Ashish Dixit, BMT doctor at Manipal Hospital in Bangalore, India. The BMT doctors trained at the U of M with BMT staff.

The internationally recognized blood and marrow transplantation (BMT) program at the University of Minnesota has an additional address—Manipal Hospital, Bangalore, India. Led by Cancer Center member Daniel Weisdorf, M.D., professor of medicine and chair of the adult BMT program, this research and clinical care partnership with Manipal is the first of its kind for the University's physician practice plan, University of Minnesota Physicians (UMPhysicians).

Frank Cerra, M.D., senior vice president for health sciences, and Jonathan Ravdin, M.D., chairman of the department of medicine, were present October 23, 2006, for the ceremonial opening of the BMT program at Manipal Hospital. The partnership aims to increase scientific collaboration and training opportunities for students and physicians from Minnesota and India and provide state-of-the-art cancer care for patients in Bangalore.

To assist Manipal Hospital in establishing the BMT clinic, UMPhysicians provided guidance in transplant protocol development, training for Bangalore physicians in Minnesota, and on-site training for BMT nursing staff in Bangalore. Dr. Weisdorf has a regular tele-conference meeting with the Manipal BMT doctors.

BMT transplant recipient Anusha was cured of aplastic anemia.

"This is a great opportunity for global collaboration at a very high level. We're pleased to have our partners at Manipal join in providing high quality transplantation therapy for their patients." said Weisdorf.

Manipal has performed ten BMT transplants since the beginning of 2006. It is only one of 12 centers throughout India with this specialty. Doctors Amit Rauthan and Ashish Dixit lead the program. Both spent time training with the BMT faculty in Minnesota.

Grateful patients were on hand at the opening to complete the celebration, including 12-year-old Anusha, who was cured of aplastic anemia. She likes to paint and draw and wants to be a doctor.

To date, the Manipal clinic is performing only autologus transplants, which uses a patient's own cells, or perfectly-matched sibling donors. There is a shortage of bone marrow donors in India, which creates challenges for the clinic. But hospitals and the government are trying to increase bone marrow collection in India as well as umbilical cord blood collection as a possible source for transplants.