Blog

First Knowledge Summit

The First Knowledge Summit was held in Bogota with the ultimate aim of finding a common language among clinicians, scientists and the psychosocial team on the understanding of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for children and adolescents.

The meeting was attended by the clinical team of the HOMI Foundation:

Dr. Gisela Barros García , Pediatric Oncohematologist, member of the team of the Hematopoietic Progenitor Transplant Unit of the HOMI Foundation.

Dr. Mauricio Chaparro, Pediatric Oncohematologist, Transplantologist, head member of the team of the Hematopoietic Progenitor Transplant Unit of the HOMI Foundation and current president of the ACHOP.

Dr. Gloria Inés Uribe, Special Hematology Bacteriologist, Bioethicist, Fundación Hospital de la Misericordia.

Dr. Carlos Alberto Pardo González, Oncohematologist, Pediatrician, Head of the Pediatric Oncohematology Unit of the Fundación Hospital de la Misericordia.

IDCBIS basic investigation team of scientists:

Ana María Perdomo, M.D., M.D., M.Sc. and Ph.

Dr. Gustavo Salguero, M.D., M.D., Ph.

Dr. Bibiana Higuera Rodríguez, social worker, specialist in management of IDCBIS institutions.

Dr. Ximena Marcela Bonilla Forero: Pharmaceutical Chemist; PhD in Cellular and Molecular Physiopathology; Specialized Researcher at IDCBIS.

IDCBIS Psychosocial Team:

Dr. Ximena Cortés, psychiatrist, forensic doctor and psychotherapist.

Nurse Xiomara Olaya, Master in Bioethics.

Carol Yaneth Peña Henao is a graduate and visual artist with a master's degree in Art History.

Psychologist Germán Piraquive Torres, specialist in Psychology and Health, Master in Psychoanalysis.

This Summit gathers the hard work of nearly three years between the disciplinary groups of the attending experts, from their respective roles in the institutions where they work. Thus, the members of the scientific team have participated in the construction of an umbilical cord resource center with whom transplantologists have been able to transplant hematopoietic progenitor units from Colombian donors and have been supported by a psychosocial perspective that has broadened the comprehensive framework and clinical approach.  

The main objective that brought together these experts was the construction of a common field of dialogue and exchange between the different interdisciplinary groups involved in pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, with a view to outlining the feasibility of cooperative work on the improvement of practices and results, focused on the child or adolescent patient.

The summit formalized its existence and its first version with a proclamation that will tie future summits together, with a commitment to dialogue and the exchange of knowledge.

For the celebration of the end of the year holidays, IDCBIS thanked and shared a moment of integration with the health professionals who participate from their institutions in the Cordial Program of the Public Cord Blood Bank.

The IDCBIS has the only public umbilical cord blood bank in the country and continues the development of the Cordial program, to promote the collection of umbilical cord blood with mothers in different regions of Colombia.

The Cordial Cord Blood Donation Program is currently available at the maternity services of the following institutions:

- Kennedy West Hospital

- Meissen Hospital

- Country Clinic

- Suba Hospital

The District Institute of Science, Biotechnology and Innovation in Health (IDCBIS) received in its facilities two professionals from the Trauma Hospital attached to the National Insurance Institute of Costa Rica. This visit took place within the framework of South-South cooperation between the Colombian Presidential Cooperation Agency and the Costa Rican Ministry of Planning, an agreement requested by Costa Rica to obtain training in techniques for obtaining and processing skin, amniotic membranes and osteomuscular tissues.

Dr. Bernardo Camacho, Director of IDCBIS, began the tour with a presentation of the Institute, highlighting the value of research, innovation and knowledge management in biomedical sciences to provide high quality human biological services and supplies. "We are a sui generis entity, unique in Latin America where we bring together a blood bank, a multi-tissue bank, an umbilical cord blood bank and a cell therapy unit," emphasized Dr. Camacho.

"We have patients who need bone reconstruction surgeries, skin grafts and currently we do not have the supplies to be able to attend them. We want to form the bone bank and give it strength, to start promoting the use of skin and membranes, as well as osteomuscular tissue," said Dr. Rosalyn Gayle from the Trauma Hospital of Costa Rica, who received the training from the IDCBIS experts.

During the meeting, the visitors acquired detailed knowledge for replication and dissemination in the different institutions of Costa Rica.

"The IDCBIS is a pioneering institute and they are very advanced in the subject, they have potential for research, we hope to be able to do joint training, to hold a seminar where experts from the institute go to Costa Rica and train our compatriots with these advances that you have and that we do not have," said Nefertiti Chaves, coordinator of the tissue bank of the Trauma Hospital.

These training programs are part of the IDCBIS experience internationalization program.