#US Bone Marrow Leukemia Industry | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

The average Tumblr user visits about 67 pages every month.

#US Bone Marrow Leukemia Industry

kenresearch1 · 10 months

Text

The Transformative Growth of the US Acute Myeloid Leukemia Market

Buy Now

What is the Size of US Acute Myeloid Leukemia Industry?

US Acute Myeloid Leukemia Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of ~ % in 2022 and is expected to reach ~USD Mn by 2028. The US Acute Myeloid Leukemia market is the rapid advancement in precision medicine and targeted therapies. The emergence of innovative treatments tailored to the genetic and molecular characteristics of individual AML patients has transformed the treatment landscape. Targeted therapies, such as FLT3 and IDH inhibitors, capitalize on specific genetic mutations driving AML, resulting in higher response rates and improved outcomes compared to traditional approaches.

Precision medicine's ability to identify the most effective treatment for each patient not only enhances therapeutic efficacy but also reduces unnecessary treatments, mitigating side effects and improving overall quality of life. This paradigm shift is bolstered by technological progress in molecular profiling techniques like next-generation sequencing, allowing for accurate genetic profiling and treatment customization.

Furthermore, regulatory support and accelerated approval pathways for targeted therapies have expedited their availability to patients. Pharmaceutical companies' increasing investment in research and development of novel agents, along with collaborations between academia and industry, leads to grow this market even more.

Click here to Download a Sample Report

US Acute Myeloid Leukemia Market by treatment type

The market is segmented by Treatment type into Chemotherapy, Targeted Therapy, Hormone Therapy, Immunotherapy and Others. Targeted Therapy is the dominant segment in the US Acute Myeloid Leukemia market in 2022. Specialty Centers, dedicated to the diagnosis, treatment, and management of specific medical conditions like AML, offer a concentrated and specialized approach to patient care. Their dominance in the AML market is driven by their unique capabilities to provide comprehensive and tailored treatments that address the complex needs of AML patients.

US Acute Myeloid Leukemia Market by end -user industry

The market is segmented by End-User into Hospitals, Homecare, Specialty Centers, Pharmacies and Others. Among these, Specialty Centers are the dominant End-User in the US Acute Myeloid Leukemia market in 2022. Specialty centers have a higher level of expertise and experience in treating specific types of cancer, including acute leukemia. They typically have specialized medical professionals, including hematologists and oncologists, who are well-versed in the latest treatment protocols and research. These centers are equipped with state-of-the-art diagnostic and treatment facilities that are specifically tailored to the needs of leukemia patients. This can include advanced imaging technologies, specialized laboratories, and access to cutting-edge therapies.

Click here to Download a Custom Report

US Acute Myeloid Leukemia companies market by Region

The US Acute Myeloid Leukemia market is segmented by Region into North, South, East, West. The dominance region is North in the US Acute Myeloid Leukemia Market in 2022. the North region often benefits from a higher level of funding for medical research, including AML. Federal funding agencies, private foundations, and pharmaceutical companies frequently channel resources into institutions within this region, allowing for greater research capabilities and clinical trials infrastructure.

Competition Scenario in US Acute Myeloid Leukemia Market

The US acute myeloid leukemia market was characterized by the presence of several prominent pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology firms striving to establish their presence and gain a competitive edge.

Larger corporations, smaller biotechnology companies making significant contributions to the AML landscape. Companies like Agios Pharmaceuticals and Daiichi Sankyo were gaining attention for their novel therapies targeting AML-associated mutations. These players are often at the forefront of introducing precision medicine approaches to AML treatment, taking advantage of advancements in genetic profiling and molecular diagnostics.

The competition is further intensified by research collaborations and partnerships between pharmaceutical companies, academic institutions, and research organizations. These collaborations aimed to combine resources, expertise, and insights to accelerate the development of effective therapies.

What is the Expected Future Outlook for the Overall US Acute Myeloid Leukemia market?

The US Acute Myeloid Leukemia market was valued at USD ~Million in 2022 and is anticipated to reach USD ~ Million by the end of 2028, witnessing a CAGR of ~% during the forecast period 2022- 2028. Pharmaceutical companies have been actively researching and developing novel therapies for Acute Myeloid Leukemia, with a focus on improving patient outcomes and reducing the side effects associated with traditional treatments like chemotherapy. The approval of new drugs, such as FLT3 and IDH inhibitors, has offered fresh therapeutic avenues for specific subsets of Acute Myeloid Leukemia patients with genetic mutations.

The future outlook for the US Acute Myeloid Leukemia market is anticipated to be influenced by a combination of factors including advancements in treatment options, evolving regulatory landscapes, and a growing understanding of the molecular basis of Acute Myeloid Leukemia. The market has been witnessing a shift towards personalized medicine, with increasing emphasis on targeted therapies and precision medicine approaches.

Furthermore, the integration of innovative technologies like next-generation sequencing (NGS) has enhanced our understanding of Acute Myeloid Leukemia’s molecular complexities, allowing for better patient stratification and treatment selection. This trend toward molecular profiling and personalized treatment regimens is likely to continue shaping the market landscape.

However, challenges persist. Despite progress, Acute Myeloid Leukemia remains a difficult-to-treat disease with a high relapse rate. Overcoming drug resistance and developing effective strategies for patients who do not respond well to existing therapies remain critical areas of focus.

Additionally, the cost of novel therapies and access to these treatments could also impact their adoption and availability. The regulatory environment, including expedited pathways for drug approvals, continue to influence market dynamics.

0 notes

healthcarehubhh · 3 months

Text

Advancement in Healthcare Industry: Myelodysplastic Syndrome Treatment Options

Myelodysplastic syndromes are a group of hematopoietic stem cell malignancies characterized by inefficient production of blood cells. The specific treatments for MDS are tailored based on the severity and subtype of disease, as well as the patient's overall health and preferences. A few options can be considered for managing MDS. Myelodysplastic Syndrome Treatment: Bone Marrow Transplantation Bone marrow transplantation, also known as hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, is the only potential cure for MDS. It involves destroying the abnormal bone marrow using high-dose chemotherapy and replacing it with healthy stem cells from another person, usually a relative or unrelated donor. Blood stem cells can also be collected from the donor's bloodstream. Candidates must be in relatively good health and have a matched donor. Due to donor availability and transplant-related risks, it is only considered for certain subtypes and higher-risk cases. Myelodysplastic Syndrome Treatment: Drug Therapy Several drugs can be used to treat low- and intermediate-risk MDS. These include: - Azacitidine (Vidaza) and decitabine (Dacogen): These are DNA methyltransferase inhibitors that help restore normal blood cell production. They are recommended as initial therapy for most intermediate-risk and selected low-risk MDS cases. - Lenalidomide (Revlimid): An immunomodulatory drug, lenalidomide alone or with azacitidine can benefit those with chromosome 5q deletions or ring sideroblasts. - Erythropoietin-stimulating agents: Drugs like epoetin alfa and darbepoetin alfa may improve anemia in low-risk cases with ring sideroblasts or specific chromosome abnormalities. - Immunosuppressive drugs: Cyclosporine and antithymocyte globulin can be tried in syndromes associated with previous cytopenias or medications. Myelodysplastic Syndrome Treatment: Supportive Care When a patient is not a transplant candidate or has lower-risk disease, supportive care focuses on managing complications through: - Blood transfusions: Regular red blood cell and platelet transfusions help control anemia and bleeding risks. - Antibiotics: Infection prophylaxis with antibiotics is commonly used due to impaired immunity from low white blood cell counts. - Growth factors: Granulocyte colony-stimulating factors may be prescribed to boost white cell production during infection recovery. Clinical Trials Clinical trials investigate new drug therapies and treatment strategies. Eligible patients should consider enrolling in trials exploring additional treatment options. Some promising MDS therapies in trials include: - Hypomethylating agents combined with lenalidomide or immune checkpoint inhibitors - Bcl-2 inhibitors targeting MDS stem cells - Monoclonal antibodies blocking cellular targets involved in leukemia development - Next-generation epigenetic drugs with novel mechanisms of action Careful monitoring under a hematologist is imperative for ongoing care, managing side effects from any treatment received, and determining if intervention is needed due to disease progression or complications. The optimal approach aims to improve blood counts and quality of life while minimizing risks.

#Myelodysplastic Syndrome Treatment Analysis #Myelodysplastic Syndrome Treatment Trend #Myelodysplastic Syndrome Treatment Demand.

0 notes

bhushans · 4 months

Text

Global Focus on Improved Outcomes: Global Blood Cancer Treatment Market

The blood cancer treatment market is poised for remarkable growth over the next decade. Valued at USD 5,935.9 million in 2023, the market is projected to expand to an impressive USD 15,735.3 million by 2033. This growth reflects a robust compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.2% during the forecast period.

This significant rise is driven by advancements in medical technology, increasing prevalence of blood cancer, and heightened awareness and adoption of innovative treatment options. The promising forecast underscores the industry’s commitment to enhancing patient outcomes and combating one of the most challenging forms of cancer.

Request Your Detailed Report Sample With Your Work Email: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1425

Industry stakeholders are optimistic about the future, as ongoing research and development efforts continue to yield new and effective therapies. The substantial market growth is expected to further accelerate the development and accessibility of life-saving treatments for blood cancer patients worldwide.

Understanding Blood Cancers: A Complex Disease

Blood cancers are a group of malignancies that affect the blood, bone marrow, or lymphatic system. These cancers disrupt the normal production of blood cells, leading to a variety of health issues. The four main types of blood cancer are:

Leukemia

Hodgkin lymphoma (HL)

Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL)

Multiple myeloma

Key Takeaways:

The global blood cancer treatment market is expected to reach US$15,735.3 million by 2033, reflecting a significant rise from US$5,935.9 million in 2023.

This growth is projected at a robust compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.2% throughout the forecast period.

Increased research and development efforts for novel therapies, coupled with rising cancer awareness initiatives, are key drivers for market expansion.

Combating Blood Cancers: A Focus on Innovation and Accessibility

The global blood cancer treatment market is experiencing significant growth, driven by a multi-pronged approach. Increased investment in research and development by key players is leading to the creation of novel and targeted therapies for various blood cancers, including leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma.

Competitive Landscape:

Some of the key participants present in the global blood cancer treatment market are:

Novartis Pharmaceuticals

Merck & Co. Inc.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

AbbVie Inc.

Johnson & Johnson Pvt. Ltd.

Celgene Corporation

Amgen Inc.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

Bayer AG

Pfizer Inc.

Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.

Attributed to the presence of such a high number of participants, the market is highly competitive. While global players such as Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, AstraZeneca, Bayer AG, and Novartis AG, account for a considerable market size, several regional-level players are also there operating across key growth regions, particularly in North America.

Recent Developments

In June 2021, Bayer announced that the company had submitted the supplemental new drug application (sNDA) to the USA Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The company had also applied to marketing authorization application (MAA) to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for the oncology treatment combination of copanlisib and rituximab in the United States of America.

In 2021, Novartis announced strong data from the analysis of the pivotal Phase II ELARA trial of Kymriah in patients with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma, with one-time Kymriah infusion, which showed an analysis of the ELARA trial demonstrated a 66% complete response rate and 86% overall response rate.

In February 2021, Bristol Myers Squibb announced that the company received approval for cancer immunotherapy from the USA Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for certain lymphomas. Further, the FDA approved the therapy as a treatment for adults who have certain types of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Key Segments Covered in the Blood Cancer Treatment Market Report:

By Application:

for Biological/Immunotherapy Applications

for Chemotherapy

for Radiation Therapy

for Targeted Therapy

for Stem Cell Transplantation

By End User:

in Hospitals

in Clinics

in Cancer Rehabilitation Centers

By Region:

North America

Latin America

Western Europe

Eastern Europe

Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ)

Japan

The Middle East & Africa (MEA)

#Blood Cancer Treatment Market

0 notes

mymedtrips · 4 months

Text

Bone Marrow Transplant Cost in India

The supple, fatty tissue found inside your bones is called bone marrow. The cells that make blood and platelets are found in bone marrow, which also produces billions of new blood cells daily.

A bone marrow transplant (BMT) includes using healthy blood-forming stem cells to replace the patients' diseased or damaged bone marrow. This is a complicated and highly specialized method used to treat blood and marrow diseases as well as specific blood tumors including leukemia and lymphoma.

Bone Marrow Transplant Cost in India

For an allogeneic transplant, the average Bone Marrow transplant cost in India is between 20,25,000 INR and 30,37,500 INR. For a Haplo transplant, the average Bone Marrow transplant price in India ranges from 29,76,330 to 41,33,792 INR. Every cost of Bone Marrow transplant in India varies in India because of patient condition and hospital fees, which is another major factor. Everything relies on your medical needs and financial capacity. You have to check price of Bone Marrow transplant in India according to hospitals.

Best Bone Marrow Transplant Hospitals in India

Fortis Memorial Research Institute

Address: Gurgaon, Opposite HUDA City Centre, Sector 44, Gurugram, Haryana – 122002.

Fortis Memorial Research's Institute of Blood Disorders and Bone Marrow Transplant is the Best Doctors for Bone Marrow transplant in India that efficiently treats patients in need of hematopoietic stem cell transplants.

The center provides autologous or allogeneic bone marrow transplant to adults, newborns, kids, and teenagers with malignant or non-malignant blood-related disorders.

Medanta – The Medicity, Gurgaon

Address: CH Baktawar Singh Road, Sector 38, Gurugram, Haryana – 122001

A multi-super specialty and the best hospital for Bone Marrow transplant in India with worldwide accreditation, Medanta provides a variety of medical services and amenities. Medanta's Bone Marrow Transplant Program is one of the top hospitals in India that provides the best BMT care for patients with blood disorders.

3. Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, Delhi

Address: Sarita Vihar, Delhi Mathura Road, New Delhi – 110076.

A notable healthcare organization around the world is Apollo Hospitals. Because it offers reputable and cost-effective BMT therapy in India, the facility is a popular choice of location for many overseas patients.

With a high record of success, the blood and bone marrow transplantation facility at Apollo Hospitals provides comprehensive, well-coordinated, and patient services for the treatment of blood problems in both adults and children.

Best Bone Marrow transplant Doctor in India

Dr. Rahul Bhargav, a well-known and the Best Bone Marrow transplant doctors in India in the bone marrow transplant industry, is the department's leader and one of the greatest bone marrow transplant physicians in India. He did more than 800 bone marrow transplants.

The hospital is dedicated to one of the most well-known pediatric BMT programs in the nation, which includes experts like Dr. Satya Prakash Yadav, a renowned pediatric hematologist with years of experience. Under this initiative, hundreds of transplants are carried out on kids, including several with half-matched donors.

Notable figures like Dr. Shishir Seth are part of the BMT team at Indraprastha Apollo. Apollo Hospitals has performed more than 1500 transplants. The Apollo BMT center works hard to offer the greatest resources for the treatment and management of benign and malignant hematological illnesses with first-rate hematological laboratory and blood transfusion services.

My Med Trip is a top medical tourism company. We are offering complete medical and healthcare services with medical consulting in India for patients from all over the world including African countries like Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa, etc. We help you in finding the best hospitals, doctors, and good accommodations at affordable costs in India. We offer surgeries, treatment and transplant. Some of the are ovarian cancer, hip replacement, knee replacement, shoulder replacement surgery cost, brain tumor, breast cancer surgery in India, orthopedic surgery cost in India, shoulder surgeons,orthopedic surgeons, heart valve replacement, top heart hospital in India, knee surgeons, best Kidney transplant hospital in India and so on.

Source: https://mymedtrips.blogspot.com/2023/10/bone-marrow-transplant-in-india.html

0 notes

helthcareheven · 5 months

Text

Stemming Disease: The Evolving Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Market

The hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) market has attracted major players owing to advantages such as long-term survival and disease remission for patients suffering from hematological malignancies and other disorders. HSCT involves transplantation of healthy stem cells either from the patient (autologous) or a donor (allogeneic) to replace damaged or destroyed bone marrow. The global HSCT market is estimated to be valued at US$ 2.88 Bn in 2024 and is expected to exhibit a CAGR of 11.% over the forecast period 2023 to 2030. Key Takeaways Key players operating in the HSCT market are Pluristem Therapeutics Inc., CellGenix GmbH, Regen Biopharma Inc., Lonza Group, Kiadis Pharma, Taiga Biotechnologies, Inc., Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Escape Therapeutics, Inc., Bluebird Bio, Inc., Talaris Therapeutics, Inc., Marker Therapeutics Inc., Stempeutics Research Pvt Ltd., CBR Systems Inc., Priothera Ltd., Eurobio Scientific Group, Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc., Pfizer Inc., Sanofi, FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation. The major opportunities in the HSCT market include increasing prevalence of blood cancer and other hematological malignancies. Globally, the number of HSCT procedures is also growing owing to expanding healthcare infrastructure and increasing acceptance of stem cell therapies. Market Drivers The rising prevalence of blood cancer is a major growth driver for the HSCT market. According to statistics, around 10 million new cancer cases are reported worldwide each year, out of which around 1 million cases are of leukemia. HSCT is an effective treatment option for various blood cancers like leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma. Hence, increasing cancer burden worldwide is augmenting demand for HSCT.

PEST Analysis Political: HSCT procedures require advanced healthcare infrastructure and stringent regulations regarding donor procurement and transplantation. Favorable healthcare reforms and investments in infrastructure strengthening cell and gene therapy capabilities. Economic: High cost of HSCT procedures, expensive for most patients and insurance firms. However increasing availability of insurance coverage and funding programs improves accessibility and uptake. Newer therapies offering potential cost savings. Social: Increasing awareness raising acceptance of HSCT for hematological conditions and cancer. Growth in medical tourism for developing countries lacking advanced healthcare. However some cultural and ethical issues regarding stem cell sourcing remains. Technological: Significant advances in transplantation techniques, conditioning regimens, graft manipulation, and targeted therapies post-transplant improving outcomes. Developments in stem cell biology and genetic engineering enabling novel HSC sources and indications. Personalized medicine approaches tailoring transplants to individual patient needs. The United States accounts for nearly one-third of the global HSCT market in terms of value concentrated in this region due to widespread insurance coverage, advanced healthcare infrastructure, high patient acceptance for transplantation, and presence of major industry players. North America is expected to remain the dominant regional market throughout the forecast period. The Asia Pacific region excluding Japan presents the fastest growth opportunities for the HSCT market propelled by rapid economic development, healthcare reforms, growing medical tourism, and contract research and manufacturing activities by global industry players in countries like India and China. Increasing prevalence of hematological malignancies and genetic disorders due to aging populations also drive the demand for HSCT procedures in Asia Pacific.

#StemCellSolutions #HSCTAdvances #CellularTherapies

0 notes

jcmarchi · 7 months

Text

Clinique, Clearasil Acne Treatments Found to Contain "High Levels" of Cancer-Causing Chemical - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/clinique-clearasil-acne-treatments-found-to-contain-high-levels-of-cancer-causing-chemical-technology-org/

Clinique, Clearasil Acne Treatments Found to Contain "High Levels" of Cancer-Causing Chemical - Technology Org

According to an independent U.S. lab report, high levels of the cancer-causing chemical benzene have been identified in certain acne treatments, including products from Estee Lauder’s Clinique, Target’s Up & Up, and Clearasil owned by Reckitt Benckiser.

Soap bubbles in a hand – illustrative photo. Image credit: Matthew Tkocz via Unsplash, free license

The U.S.-based independent laboratory Valisure has filed a petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), urging the recall of these products, an investigation, and the revision of industry guidance.

Estee Lauder shares experienced a 2% decline following the news.

Valisure detected benzene not only in Clinique, Up & Up, and Clearasil but also in Proactiv, PanOxyl, Walgreens’ acne soap bar, and Walmart’s Equate Beauty acne cream, among others.

The lab also highlighted the potential formation of benzene at “unacceptably high levels” in both prescription and over-the-counter benzoyl peroxide acne treatment products.

Reckitt responded, stating that the findings reflected unrealistic scenarios and maintained the safety of Clearasil products when used as directed.

Estee Lauder stated that Clinique employs benzoyl peroxide in one of its products, asserting that it is “safe for use as intended.”

What is benzene, why is it dangerous to humans?

The carcinogenic compound, benzene, has previously been identified in various consumer products like sunscreens, hand sanitizers, and dry shampoo, prompting recalls by companies including Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson.

However, Valisure noted that the detection of benzene in acne treatment products differed significantly from previous cases, emphasizing that in benzoyl peroxide products, benzene originates from the benzoyl peroxide itself. Valisure’s tests revealed that certain products could exceed the FDA’s concentration limit for benzene by over 800 times.

Benzene is a colorless liquid with a sweet odor and is a natural component of crude oil. It is used in the production of various chemicals, including plastics, resins, synthetic fibers, rubber, dyes, detergents, and pharmaceuticals. While benzene has industrial applications, it is considered hazardous to human health due to its toxic properties.

Benzene is harmful because it is a known carcinogen, meaning it has been proven to cause cancer in humans. Prolonged exposure to benzene has been linked to various types of cancers, including leukemia and other blood-related disorders. It can enter the body through inhalation, ingestion, or skin contact.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies benzene as a Group 1 carcinogen to humans, indicating sufficient evidence of its carcinogenicity. The primary health risks associated with benzene exposure include the development of cancers, particularly in the blood-forming organs.

In addition to its carcinogenic effects, benzene exposure can cause other health issues, such as damage to the bone marrow, leading to decreased production of blood cells. Short-term exposure to high levels of benzene can result in symptoms like dizziness, headaches, and drowsiness.

Due to its well-established health risks, regulatory agencies, including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), have established guidelines and permissible exposure limits to protect workers and the general public from excessive benzene exposure in occupational and environmental settings.

Written by Alius Noreika

1 note · View note

jayanthitbrc · 7 months

Text

Funding the Future: CAR-T Therapy Market Thrives on Financial Backing for Development and Consumption

The CAR-T Therapy by The Business Research Company provides market overview across 60+ geographies in the seven regions - Asia-Pacific, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, South America, the Middle East, and Africa, encompassing 27 major global industries. The report presents a comprehensive analysis over a ten-year historic period (2010-2021) and extends its insights into a ten-year forecast period (2023-2033). Learn More On The CAR-T Therapy Market: https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/report/car-t-therapy-global-market-report According to The Business Research Company’s CAR-T Therapy, The car-t therapy pipeline analysis market size has grown rapidly in recent years. It will grow from $2.15 billion in 2023 to $2.55 billion in 2024 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.1%. The growth in the historic period can be attributed to increases in healthcare expenditure, increase in pharmaceutical r&d expenditure and advances in drug discovery. The car-t therapy pipeline analysis market size is expected to see rapid growth in the next few years. It will grow to $4.74 billion in 2028 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.7%. The growth in the forecast period can be attributed to increase in blood cancer incidence rate, rise in healthcare expenditure, strong pipeline of drugs and rising focus on car-t therapy. The CAR-T therapy market is driven by the increasing financial support provided by different organizations to promote the development and consumption of CAR-T therapy. The government and non-government organizations provide financial support to the companies in the CAR-T therapy market for research and development and the patients for their treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Get A Free Sample Of The Report (Includes Graphs And Tables): https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/sample.aspx?id=6670&type=smp The car-t therapy pipeline analysis market covered in this report is segmented – 1) By Type: Monotherapy, Combination Therapy 2) By Target Antigen: CD19, CD22, BCMA, Other Target Antigens 3) By Application: Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma, Follicular Lymphoma, Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, Multiple Myeloma, Other Applications The companies in the CAR-T therapy market are conducting clinical trials to assess the ability of CAR-T therapy to treat multiple myeloma. Multiple myeloma is a type of white blood cell cancer where the cancer cells accumulate in the bone marrow and surrounds the healthy blood cells. The car-t therapy market report table of contents includes: 1. Executive Summary 2. Market Characteristics 3. Market Trends And Strategies 4. Impact Of COVID-19 5. Market Size And Growth 6. Segmentation 7. Regional And Country Analysis . . . 27. Competitive Landscape And Company Profiles 28. Key Mergers And Acquisitions 29. Future Outlook and Potential Analysis Contact Us: The Business Research Company Europe: +44 207 1930 708 Asia: +91 88972 63534 Americas: +1 315 623 0293 Email: [email protected] Follow Us On: LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/company/the-business-research-company Twitter: https://twitter.com/tbrc_info Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheBusinessResearchCompany YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC24_fI0rV8cR5DxlCpgmyFQ Blog: https://blog.tbrc.info/ Healthcare Blog: https://healthcareresearchreports.com/ Global Market Model: https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/global-market-model

0 notes

legendaryturtletheorist · 9 months

Text

Blood Cell Culture: Unlocking Insights into Health and Disease

In the realm of medical research, blood cell culture stands as a crucial and versatile tool, offering scientists a controlled environment to study the behavior, functions, and abnormalities of various blood cells. This sophisticated technique has paved the way for groundbreaking discoveries, enhanced our understanding of diseases, and contributed significantly to the development of novel therapies. In this exploration, we will delve into the intricacies of blood cell culture, examining its applications, methodologies, and the transformative impact it has on advancing medical knowledge.

Understanding Blood Cell Culture:

Blood, a complex and dynamic bodily fluid, is composed of various cell types, including red blood cells (RBCs), white blood cells (WBCs), and platelets, each playing distinct roles in maintaining homeostasis. Blood cell culture involves the isolation and propagation of these cells in a controlled environment outside the body. This allows researchers to observe their behavior, responses to stimuli, and interactions, providing invaluable insights into normal physiological processes and pathological conditions.

Applications of Blood Cell Culture:

Disease Modeling:

Blood cell culture serves as a powerful tool for creating disease models, allowing researchers to simulate and study various hematological disorders. This includes conditions such as leukemia, sickle cell anemia, and hemophilia. By culturing cells derived from patients with these diseases, scientists can investigate the underlying mechanisms, test potential therapies, and gain a deeper understanding of the molecular basis of these disorders.

Drug Development:

The pharmaceutical industry heavily relies on blood cell culture to assess the safety and efficacy of new drugs. Cultured blood cells provide a platform for screening potential therapeutic agents, evaluating their impact on cell function, and identifying compounds that may hold promise for treating specific diseases. This not only accelerates the drug development process but also reduces the reliance on animal testing.

Immunology Research:

White blood cells, integral components of the immune system, play a central role in defending the body against infections and diseases. Blood cell culture enables researchers to explore the intricacies of immune responses, study the function of different immune cell types, and investigate how these cells interact with pathogens. This knowledge is crucial for developing vaccines, understanding autoimmune disorders, and advancing immunotherapy.

Stem Cell Research:

Blood cell culture also plays a pivotal role in stem cell research. Hematopoietic stem cells, which have the ability to differentiate into various blood cell types, can be cultured and manipulated to better understand their properties and potential therapeutic applications. This has significant implications for regenerative medicine and the treatment of conditions such as bone marrow failure and certain genetic disorders.

Methodologies of Blood Cell Culture:

Isolation of Blood Cells:

The first step in blood cell culture involves the isolation of the desired cell types. This can be achieved through techniques such as density gradient centrifugation, which separates cells based on their density, or magnetic cell sorting, which uses magnetic beads to selectively isolate specific cell populations.

Cell Culture Media:

Once isolated, the cells are cultured in a nutrient-rich medium that mimics the conditions found in the body. This medium contains essential nutrients, growth factors, and hormones necessary for cell survival and proliferation. The composition of the medium is tailored to the specific requirements of the cell type being cultured.

Sterile Conditions:

Maintaining sterility throughout the cell culture process is paramount to prevent contamination and ensure the reliability of experimental results. This is achieved by working in a laminar flow hood, using sterile equipment and reagents, and regularly monitoring cultures for signs of contamination.

Cell Culture Incubators:

Cells are typically cultured in incubators that provide a controlled environment with regulated temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide levels. These conditions mimic the physiological environment of the body, promoting cell growth and viability.

Challenges and Innovations:

While blood cell culture has revolutionized medical research, it is not without its challenges. One significant hurdle is the difficulty in maintaining the normal physiological characteristics of cells in culture over extended periods. Researchers continually strive to develop improved culture systems, incorporating advancements such as three-dimensional culture models and microfluidic devices to better mimic the in vivo microenvironment.

Moreover, the heterogeneity of blood cell populations poses a challenge, as different cell types may respond differently to culture conditions. Innovations in single-cell analysis techniques have enabled researchers to study individual cells within a population, unraveling the complexities of cellular diversity and behavior.

Conclusion:

In the realm of medical science, blood cell culture stands as a linchpin for research, enabling scientists to unravel the mysteries of health and disease at the cellular level. From disease modeling to drug development, this technique has proven instrumental in advancing our understanding of the intricacies of blood cells and their roles in the body. As technology continues to evolve, blood cell culture will undoubtedly remain a cornerstone in the pursuit of new knowledge, therapies, and medical breakthroughs, bringing us closer to a future where diseases can be understood and treated with unprecedented precision.

#cell culture bacterial contamination

0 notes

pharmanucleus1 · 10 months

Text

Global Acute Lymphocytic/Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) Therapeutics Market

The Acute Lymphoid/Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) Therapeutics Market is estimated at USD XX million in 2023, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of XX% during the forecast period of 2023 to 2030. This growth can be ascribed to rising prevalence of acute lymphoid/lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) which is expected to fuel the demand for acute lymphoid/lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) treatments.

ALL therapies are a class of medications and methods used to treat acute lymphoid/lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). The malignant cells of this cancer attack the blood and bone marrow, compromising the integrity of white blood cells. It is more prevalent in youngsters because it happens when a bone marrow cell has DNA abnormalities, which generally happens when the bone marrow is still forming.

Click here for full report:

Get more details on this report - Request Free Sample

The key driver for market growth in acute lymphoid/lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) therapies lies in the notable increase of product approvals. This increase reflects a growing recognition of the pressing need for effective treatments. Additionally, there has been a commendable rise in government and pharmaceutical organizations' initiatives to raise disease awareness, fostering an environment conducive to market expansion. Furthermore, advancements in treatment technologies have witnessed remarkable progress, facilitated by increased investments from manufacturers. These advancements have led to innovative solutions for managing ALL-related disorders. Moreover, the growing number of new product approvals has significantly contributed to market growth, ensuring a broader range of treatment options for patients. Additionally, increasing technological advancement and modernization of healthcare devices and increase in research and development activities in the healthcare sector and rise of emerging markets will create more new opportunities for the therapeutic market of acute lymphoid/lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) during the forecast period of 2023-2030.

Click here for full report:

However, increasing patent expiration of blockbuster drugs and increase in treatment side effects are the major factors among others that will hamper the growth of the therapeutic market of acute lymphoid/lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) over the forecast period.

This Acute Lymphocytic/Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) Therapy Market report provides details about recent new developments, trade regulations, import and export analysis, production analysis, optimization of the value chain, market share, the impact of national and localized market players, analyzes the opportunities in terms of emerging revenue pockets, changes in market regulations, strategic analysis of market growth, size market growth, category market growth, niches and application dominance, product approvals, product launches, geographic expansions, technological innovations in the market. For more insights on the Acute Lymphocytic/Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) Therapeutics Market, contact Pharmanucleus for an Analyst Brief, our team will help you make an informed market decision to achieve market growth.

Global HVAC Insulation Market Report Coverage

Report Coverage

Details

Base Year

2023

Market Size in 2023

USD 10.2 Million

CAGR (2024-2031)

5.5%

Forecast Years

2024-2031

Historical Data

2016-2022

Market Size in

USD 5.5 Million

companies Covered

Pfizer, UCB S.A., Bausch Health Companies Inc, Novartis AG, GlaxoSmithKline plc, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Services Inc., NeuroPace Inc., Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc., Eisai Co., Upsher-Smith Laboratories, Amneal Pharmaceuticals LLC., Sanofi S.A., NeuroWave Systems Inc., Natus Medical Incorporated., Siemens Ltd.

Segments Covered

By Product, By Distribution Channel, By Region

Challenges

Shortage of neurology healthcare professionals in many developing nations

The high cost and restricted prescription limit the accessibility to ant seizure medications.

Lack of awareness of epilepsy in developing nations.

Get more details on this report - Request Free Sample

Acute Lymphocytic/Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) Therapeutics Market Scope

The market for acute lymphoid/lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) treatments is divided by age categories, diagnoses, pharmacological kinds, therapies, cell types, and administration methods. Expanding these categories will allow you to analyse new industries while also giving users with critical industry and market information to assist them in making strategic decisions to identify key market applications.

Based on age group, the acute lymphoid/lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) therapeutic market is segmented into pediatrics and adults.

On the basis of diagnosis, acute lymphoid/lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) therapeutics market is segmented into bone marrow biopsy and aspiration, complete blood count (CBC) and differential, presence of Philadelphia chromosome, lumbar puncture analysis and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), immunophenotyping/phenotyping by flow cytometry and polymerase chain reaction (PCR).

Based on drug type, the acute lymphoid/lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) therapeutics market is segmented into existing drugs and drugs in development.

Based on therapy, the acute lymphoid/lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) therapeutics market is segmented into targeted drugs and immunotherapy, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, stem cell transplantation and pipeline.

On the basis of cell type, acute lymphoid/lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) therapeutics market is segmented into Philadelphia chromosome, precursor to B-cell and all-T cell ALL.

The acute lymphocytic/lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) therapeutics market is also segmented on the basis of the role of oral and parenteral administration.

0 notes

kenresearch1 · 11 months

Text

Top 3 US Pharmaceutical Companies and Their Strategies in US Acute Myeloid Leukemia Market

Buy Now

US Acute Myeloid Leukemia Market is growing due to advancement in treatment approaches, increase healthcare costs and expenditure, growing investments in Research and Development, and a constant growth in population.

Story Outline

Pfizer Inc.- An American multinational company with the highest annual revenue of around 100 billion US$ in 2022 in the drug market. The company has made significant contributions to the US Acute Myeloid Leukemia Market through a sophisticated, robust, agile manufacturing infrastructure and investment in research and development.

Brystol Myers Squibb- One of the largest American pharmaceutical companies which consistently ranks on the Fortune 500 list of the largest US corporations. The company’s mission is to discover, develop, and deliver innovative medicines that help patients as well as prevail over serious diseases.

Novartis AG- The company with the fourth-largest revenue in the drug market which is focused to deliver high-value medicine that alleviate society’s greatest disease burdens through technology leadership in R&D and novel access approaches.

The US Acute Myeloid Leukemia Market is expected to grow at CAGR of 10.5% in the forecast period 2022-2028.

The Acute Myeloid Leukemia Market of US is driving growth at an amazing level. This surge is a result of advancement in treatment approaches, increases healthcare costs and expenditure, growing investments in Research and Development, and a constant growth in population.

Various pharmaceutical companies are actively shaping this growing market with their strategies and innovations.

This article provides an in-depth look at major pharmaceutical companies with their strategies and innovations.

1.Pfizer Inc.

Click here: To know more about Pfizer Inc.

Pfizer Inc. is an American multinational pharmaceutical company and headquartered at The Spiral in Manhattan, New York City. The company has made significant contributions to the US Acute Myeloid Leukemia Market through a sophisticated, robust, agile manufacturing infrastructure and investing in research and development.

The company employs more than 30,000 employees worldwide, have 35+ manufacturing sites, 300+ external suppliers, and have reached more than 180 countries. Pfizer tops the list of drug market by achieving a revenue of approx. 100 billion USD in 2022.

Pfizer has made significant contributions to the US acute Myeloid Leukemia Market. Some notable contributions are, in April 2017, the development and approval of a targeted therapy called “Rydapt”, which is an oral kinase inhibitor that targets multiple enzymes, including FLt3, which is often mutated in AML patients. The drug was approved by FDA in April 2017 for use in combination with Chemotherapy.

Furthermore, MYLOTARG is approved in combination with daunorubicin and cytarabine for the treatment of patients aged 15 and above with previously untreated, de novo, CD33-positive acute myeloid leukemia (AML), except Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia (APL).

The company’s purpose is “Breakthroughs that change patients' lives—fuels everything we do and reflects our passion for building on our legacy as one of the greatest contributors of good to the world.

The company says that its purpose ensures that its patients remain at the center of all that they do. They live with their purpose by sourcing the best science in the world; partnering with others in the healthcare system to improve access to their medicines.

Pfizer believes in growing partnerships with innovators to initiate forward great science and continually seek new partners that are actively researching bold scientific ideas. In December 2022, Pfizer announced its collaboration with Gero’s machine learning technology platform to discover potential therapeutic targets for fibrotic using large-scale human-based data.

Pfizer’s continuous clinical trials and collaboration with healthcare institutions and research organizations has majorly contributed in advancing Acute Myeloid Leukemia Market and the development of novel treatment strategies.

2.Bristol Myers Squibb

Click here: To Download a Sample Report

The Bristol Myers Squibb Company, is an American multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey. BMS is one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies and consistently ranks on the Fortune 500 list of the largest US corporations.

The company employs more than 34,000 across more than 86 locations worldwide. The company’s revenue in 2022 was approximately 46 bn USD.

Their mission is to discover, develop, and deliver innovative medicines that help patients as well as prevail over serious diseases. Bristol believes in the power of science to address some most challenging diseases of today's world.

Bristol Myers is majorly known for its contributions to oncology, and immunology and its involvement in Acute Myeloid Leukemia Market with its broader focus on cancer treatments.

The significant development of BMS can be noted from June 2021, Bristol Myers Squibb received approval from European Commission for Onureg, a Frontline oral maintenance therapy for adult patients with acute Myeloid Leukemia who achieved their first complete remission (CR) or CR with incomplete blood count recovery following intensive induction chemotherapy. Onureg is expected to increase sales and product revenue, thereby increasing the US Acute Myeloid Leukemia Market growth.

Furthermore, the strategic cooperation between Evotec and Bristol Myers Squibb has grown in order to create a pipeline for programs addressing more neurological illnesses. In order to find altering therapies for a variety of neurodegenerative disorders, the firms started working together in 2016. The eight-year extension is intended to strengthen the strategic partnership even more.

3.Novartis AG

Click Here : To Download a Custom Report

Novartis AG is a healthcare company that majorly focuses on the discovery, development, manufacture and marketing of prescription and generic pharmaceutical and eye care products. Novartis offers generic medicines and biosimilars through Sandoz. The company conducts its research through The Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research (NIBR).

Novartis is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and the fourth largest by revenue in 2022, which was approx. 50.500 billion USD.

The company is functioning in more than 150 locations with around 1,10,000 employees working worldwide.

Novartis's strategy as a focused medicines company is to deliver high-value medicine that alleviates society’s greatest disease burdens through technology leadership in R&D an novel access approaches.

Novartis contribution to Acute Myeloid Leukemia Market includes, FDA approval of Novartis Scemblix (asciminib), with novel mechanism of action for the treatment of Leukemia in October,2021.

Furthermore, through their open approach Novartis is focusing on new technologies to develop next generation therapeutics. Currently, Novartis is working with Orionis Bioscience to find new targets at a genome-wide scale.

By combining development and drug discovery with innovation, they aim to achieve tenuous targets and to launch novel small molecule therapy for Acute Myeloid Leukemia patients more quickly. Thus driving a steered growth for the US Acute Myeloid Leukemia Market.

0 notes

melonglobalcare · 1 year

Text

Mantle-Cell Lymphoma: A Comprehensive Guide to Managing the Disease

Mantle-Cell Lymphoma is a rare type of cancer that affects the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is a network of tissues and organs that help your body fight infections and diseases. MCL develops when abnormal B cells (a type of white blood cell) grow out of control and form tumors in the lymph nodes. MCL is considered an aggressive type of lymphoma, which means it can grow and spread quickly to other parts of the body, such as the bone marrow, spleen, and digestive tract.

Symptoms of MCL may include swollen lymph nodes, fatigue, weight loss, night sweats, and stomach pain. However, these symptoms are not specific to MCL and can be caused by other conditions. Therefore, a proper diagnosis is crucial for determining the appropriate treatment plan.

How is Mantle-Cell Lymphoma Diagnosed?

MCL is diagnosed through a combination of tests and procedures. The first step is usually a physical examination, during which the doctor will check for swollen lymph nodes and other signs of MCL. Next, the doctor may order blood tests to check for abnormal levels of certain proteins and other substances that may indicate the presence of MCL. A biopsy may also be performed, which involves removing a sample of tissue from the lymph node and examining it under a microscope to look for cancer cells.

In some cases, additional tests may be necessary to determine the stage of MCL. This may include imaging tests, such as CT scans or PET scans, which can show whether the cancer has spread to other parts of the body. Once the diagnosis and stage of MCL have been determined, the doctor can develop a treatment plan.

Coping with Mantle-Cell Lymphoma

Coping with MCL can be challenging, both physically and emotionally. However, there are several strategies that can help patients manage their symptoms and improve their quality of life.

Mantle-Cell Lymphoma Support Groups

Joining a support group can be a helpful way for patients with MCL to connect with others who are going through similar experiences. Support groups can provide emotional support, information about treatment options, and practical advice for managing symptoms.

Mind-Body Techniques

Mind-body techniques, such as meditation, yoga, and tai chi, can help patients manage stress and anxiety associated with MCL. These techniques can also improve physical symptoms, such as fatigue and pain.

Treatment Options for Mantle-Cell Lymphoma

The treatment plan for MCL will depend on several factors, including the stage of the cancer, the patient’s age and overall health, and the patient’s preferences. The goals of treatment for MCL are to eliminate cancer cells, relieve symptoms, and prevent the cancer from returning. There are several treatment options available for MCL, including chemotherapy, radiation therapy, stem cell transplant, and clinical trials. In some cases, a combination of these treatments may be used.

It can also be treated by medicines. You can buy the medicine online. Nitib 140mg Capsule is used to treat Mantle-Cell Lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. It contains Ibrutinib (140mg). This medicine is supplied online by Melon GlobalCare. Melon GlobalCare is a well-established healthcare brand and one of the world’s upcoming distributors in the pharmaceutical industry. They offer the finest Medical Facilities and provide the highest quality medications at reasonable prices.

#bulkpharmaexporter

0 notes

bhushans · 5 months

Text

Global Focus on Improved Outcomes: Global Blood Cancer Treatment market

The Blood Cancer Treatment market. According to a recent analysis, the market size is anticipated to increase from US$ 5,935.9 million in 2023 to US$ 15,735.3 million in 2033. During the projection period, Blood Cancer Treatment sales are expected to grow at a noteworthy Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 10.2%.

Blood cancer, encompassing leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma, and multiple myeloma, represents a significant healthcare challenge globally. The projected growth in the Blood Cancer Treatment market reflects the increasing prevalence of these malignancies and the growing demand for effective treatment options.

Discover Industry Secrets Through Your Sample Report: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1425

Understanding Blood Cancers: A Complex Disease

Leukemia

Hodgkin lymphoma (HL)

Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL)

Multiple myeloma

Key Takeaways:

The global blood cancer treatment market is expected to reach US$15,735.3 million by 2033, reflecting a significant rise from US$5,935.9 million in 2023.

This growth is projected at a robust compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.2% throughout the forecast period.

Increased research and development efforts for novel therapies, coupled with rising cancer awareness initiatives, are key drivers for market expansion.

Combating Blood Cancers: A Focus on Innovation and Accessibility

Competitive Landscape:

Some of the key participants present in the global blood cancer treatment market are:

Novartis Pharmaceuticals

Merck & Co. Inc.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

AbbVie Inc.

Johnson & Johnson Pvt. Ltd.

Celgene Corporation

Amgen Inc.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

Bayer AG

Pfizer Inc.

Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.

Recent Developments

Key Segments Covered in the Blood Cancer Treatment Market Report:

By Application:

for Biological/Immunotherapy Applications

for Chemotherapy

for Radiation Therapy

for Targeted Therapy

for Stem Cell Transplantation

By End User:

in Hospitals

in Clinics

in Cancer Rehabilitation Centers

By Region:

North America

Latin America

Western Europe

Eastern Europe

Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ)

Japan

The Middle East & Africa (MEA)

#Blood Cancer Treatment

0 notes

mymedtrips · 1 year

Text

Bone Marrow Transplant in India

The supple, fatty tissue found inside your bones is called bone marrow. The cells that make blood and platelets are found in bone marrow, which also produces billions of new blood cells daily.

Bone Marrow transplant cost in India

Best Bone Marrow transplant hospitals in India

Fortis Memorial Research Institute

Address: Gurgaon, Opposite HUDA City Centre, Sector 44, Gurugram, Haryana – 122002.

The center provides autologous or allogeneic bone marrow transplant to adults, newborns, kids, and teenagers with malignant or non-malignant blood-related disorders.

Medanta – The Medicity, Gurgaon

Address: CH Baktawar Singh Road, Sector 38, Gurugram, Haryana – 122001

3. Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, Delhi

Address: Sarita Vihar, Delhi Mathura Road, New Delhi – 110076.

Best Bone Marrow transplant Doctor in India

My Med Trip is a top medical tourism company in India. We are offering complete medical and healthcare services with medical consulting in India for patients from all over the world including African countries like Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa, etc. We help you in finding the best hospitals, doctors, and good accommodations at affordable costs in India. We offer surgeries, treatment and transplant. Some of the are kidney transplant cost in India, heart transplant, cancer treatment, liver transplant in India, prostate cancer, best cardiologist in India, ovarian cancer, hip replacement, knee replacement, shoulder replacement surgery cost in India, brain tumor, breast cancer surgery in India, orthopedic surgery cost in India, shoulder surgeons,best cardiologists in India, orthopedic surgeons, liver cancer treatment in India, heart valve replacement, top heart hospital in India, knee surgeons, best Kidney transplant hospital in India and so on.

Source: https://mymedtrips.blogspot.com/2023/10/bone-marrow-transplant-in-india.html

0 notes

impossibledeanmakerwombat · 2 years

Text

Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Market 2023 Growth, COVID Impact, Trends Analysis Report 2033

A recently published study by FMI expects the global hematopoietic stem cell transplantation market to augment at an 8% CAGR from 2023 to 2033. By the end of the said assessment period, a valuation of US$ 15 Billion is expected for the market. The hematopoietic stem cell transplantation market has grown fast in recent years and is expected to develop substantially over the projected period. According to the GLOBOCAN 2018 report, the global incidence of leukaemia in 2018 was predicted to be 437,033 new cases and about 309,006 deaths.

Request Sample Copy of Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-16462

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 2000 cord blood hematopoietic stem cell transplants are performed each year (WHO). Hematopoietic stem cells can be found in bone marrow and blood (HSCs).

Key Segments Profiled in the Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Market Industry Survey

By Transplant Type:

Allogeneic

Autologous

By Indication:

Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Hodgkin Lymphoma

Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma

Multiple Myeloma

Other Non-Malignant Disorders

By Application:

Bone Marrow Transplant

Peripheral Blood Stem Cells Transplant

Cord Blood Transplant

0 notes

mana05 · 2 years

Text

Leukemia Therapeutics Market Trends, Share, Growth, Demand, Industry Analysis, Key Player profile and Regional Outlook by 2029

Leukemia Therapeutics Market Overview:

The "Leukemia Therapeutics Market Analysis" is an in-depth look at the Leukemia Therapeutics market, with a focus on global market trends and analysis. This study seeks to provide an overview of the Leukemia Therapeutics industry as well as detailed market segmentation by segment and geography. The Leukemia Therapeutics market is expected to expand rapidly over the forecast period. The research contains critical information on the market positions of the top Leukemia Therapeutics firms, as well as significant industry trends and opportunities.

Expected Revenue Growth:

Leukemia Therapeutics Market was valued at US$ 11.32 Bn in 2019 and is expected to reach US$ 19.2 Bn by 2027, at a CAGR of 7.84 % during the forecast period.

Request a Free Sample Copy or View Report Summary: https://www.maximizemarketresearch.com/request-sample/31197

Leukemia Therapeutics Market Scope:

To validate the market size and estimate the market size by different segments, top-down and bottom-up methodologies are utilized. The research's market estimates are based on the sale price (excluding any discounts provided by the manufacturer, distributor, wholesaler, or traders). Weights applied to each section based on usage rate and average sale price are used to determine percentage splits, market shares, and segment breakdowns. The percentage adoption or usage of the provided market Size in the relevant area or nation is used to determine the country-wise splits of the overall market and its sub-segments.

Leukemia Therapeutics Market Dynamics:

Increased prevalence of cancer especially blood cancer across the globe is increasing demand for effective treatments, which is the driving factor for market growth. Increase in expenditure on the development of novel treatment and developing health infrastructure is further driving the market growth. Additionally, the growth in survival rate and minimum side effects of novel treatment such as stem cell therapy, bone marrow transplant has open new avenues for market growth. Also, increased exposure to chemical mutation, changing dietary habits, and the living style of the population is further pushing the market growth.

Segment Analysis:

Based on treatment type, chemotherapy led the segment in 2019. Because of its ability to kill cancerous cells or inhibiting their proliferation and maintain a normal level of lymphocytes of chemotherapy, is driving the market growth. Similarly, the increased survival rate of the patients treated with chemotherapy is again fuelling its demand.

For Any Queries, Contact Us: https://www.maximizemarketresearch.com/inquiry-before-buying/31197

Major Players:

Primary and secondary research is used to discover industry titans, while primary and secondary research is utilized to assess market revenue. The core research included in-depth interviews with a variety of thought leaders and industry experts, including experienced front-line personnel, CEOs, and marketing specialists. Secondary research comprised an examination of well-known manufacturers' annual and financial reports. Secondary data is utilized to calculate percentage splits, market shares, growth rates, and global market breakdowns, which are then cross-checked against primary data. The following are a few companies working in the Leukemia Therapeutics industry.

• Novartis AG • AbbVie • Bristol-Myers Squibb • Hoffmann-La Roche • Sanofi • Pfizer • Amgen • Gilead Sciences • Takeda • Celgene • AbARIAD Pharmaceuticals, Inc. • F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.

Regional Analysis:

The research focuses on geographic analysis, which is further divided into sub-regions and nations. This component of the research includes profit estimates and market share figures for each nation. This section of the research looks at each region's and country's share and growth rate throughout the anticipated time period.

After analyzing political, economic, social, and technological factors affecting the Leukemia Therapeutics market in various sectors, the research presents a complete PESTEL analysis for all five regions, including North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, and South America.

COVID-19 Impact Analysis on Leukemia Therapeutics Market:

As a result of the COVID-19 virus, customer behavior has changed in many spheres of society. Businesses, on the other hand, will need to adjust their strategy to account for shifting market supply. This paper gives an outline of COVID-19's impact on the Leukemia Therapeutics market and will help you build your business in compliance with the new industry standards.

The Leukemia Therapeutics Market Report, under the COVID-19 Influence area, provides 360-degree research spanning from the agile supply chain and trade barriers to regional government regulations and the firm's future impact. Primary market research (2021-2027), examples of venture rivalry, the advantages and disadvantages of huge business channels, and industry growth trends (2021-2029) are all offered.

Key Questions Answered in the Leukemia Therapeutics Market Report are:

How big is the market for Leukemia Therapeutics?

Which regional market will emerge as the market leader in the next years?

Which application category is expected to develop the fastest?

What opportunities for growth could exist in the Leukemia Therapeutics industry in the next years?

What are the most significant future challenges that the Leukemia Therapeutics market may face?

Who are the market leaders in the Leukemia Therapeutics category?

What are the main trends that are influencing market growth?

To Gain More Insights into the Market Analysis, Browse Summary of the Research Report: https://www.maximizemarketresearch.com/request-customization/31197

About Us:

MAXIMIZE MARKET RESEARCH PVT. LTD.

3rd Floor, Navale IT Park Phase 2,

Pune Banglore Highway,

Narhe, Pune, Maharashtra 411041, India.

Email: [email protected]

Phone No.: +91 20 6630 3320

0 notes

alarawriting · 4 years

Text

The Cold At The Heart of the Light: Chapter One

I’ve decided I’ll post probably the first three chapters of this as I work on it. There’s currently six chapters written and the seventh is started; I have been planning about twelve of them.

This is gonna have to be edited a lot when I finish the whole thing -- it’s too goddamn long, for one thing -- but I can’t spend too much time editing the first draft when I’m not done with it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

As soon as the maid led me to the living room and I got my first look at the little girl, I could tell the child was dying. She was sitting on an overstuffed, white suede couch with brown fringy pillows all around her, at the back of a living room that looked like something out of House Beautiful, all tall wide windows and understated elegance in brown and beige and gold and white. She was maybe about seven, if her disease hadn’t undersized her, feet dangling off the couch and not moving. When children whose feet are dangling are not kicking those feet, and there is neither a book nor a TV nearby to explain the discrepancy, I can generally tell something is wrong. Her blonde curly wig was as expensive as the décor of her parents’ living room, but I’m an expert in these matters – I could tell the chemo had taken her hair. And her skin was dull and dry looking, her eyes vague and unfocused, her expression indrawn and blank, her small limbs painfully skinny. She showed all the signs of either being abused, drugged, or severely ill, and given that her father had called me in, I knew that at least it was the last. Probably the second as well. The pharmaceutical industry has never solved the problem of stopping children’s pain to my satisfaction (or, for that matter, the children’s.)

Her mother would have been an elegantly plastic politician’s wife if she hadn’t been sitting tensely at the edge of the sofa, arm around her daughter, clutching the child. Fear and anxiety make even women with $500 haircuts and botoxed foreheads seem human. I’d already forgotten the woman’s name; after checking over the daughter with a quick glance, I turned to focus on her father. Senator John Lightman, one of those politicians who manages to look “boyish” simply by being a thin dark-haired man in his prime when everyone else in the Senate is somewhere between 60 and dead, was walking toward me, reaching out a hand as if to shake it. I saw the look of puzzlement cross his face as he got a good look at me. “Are you…”

“Dr. Mystery?” I filled in the blank. “Yes, of course, I apologize. You couldn’t possibly recognize me like this.” I had arrived in a stock form, a middle-aged woman of average height, weight and appearance with blonde graying hair in a short fluffy do. I couldn’t very well drive around town in my working form, but now that I was here, it was time to shock and awe the mundanes. With a thought, I transformed.

When I first adopted this as my working form, it used to take me ten or twenty minutes in front of a mirror to get it just right, because it doesn’t look human enough for me to use DNA as a model anywhere – I have to brute-force it. But by this time I’d been doing it for so many years, it took only a few seconds. Changing doesn’t hurt – it feels like having a really good stretch, actually.

In a moment, I was six feet tall, simultaneously busty and thin, with the golden skin of an Academy award, iris-less purple eyes with cat pupils, and flame-red hair down to the small of my back. I wore a skin-tight black leather catsuit with no shoes, and modified pelvis and leg muscles so I looked like I was wearing high heels even though I was barefoot – an anatomic impossibility for other women, but there’s no point in having total control over your own flesh if you can’t use it to show off a little. To complete the costume I grew a white cotton labcoat over the catsuit; not exactly a cape, but the name is Doctor Mystery, not Ms. Mystery or Lady Mystery or Sexy Chick I’d Like To Do Mystery.

Being a supervillain’s all about the power and the respect. Back when my working form wasn’t quite so do-me hot, I actually used to get less respect as a villain, as if a woman couldn’t possibly really be all that mad, bad and dangerous to know if she doesn’t look like a supermodel. But when I do the catsuit without the lab coat, I get respect as a badass with dangerous powers and incredible fighting skills, not as a biomedical genius. Not that I’m not a badass with dangerous powers and incredible fighting skills, but I’m not a teen thug for hire anymore, I’m a bona fide mad scientist and I want people to remember that, dammit.

Mrs. Lightman’s eyes went wide, and she made a tiny little yelping noise and clutched her little girl… who rather than looking frightened, actually looked mildly interested for the first time since I’d arrived. Her dad was trying to hide it, but his lips had compressed as if he were trying not to bite them and there was just the tiniest tremor in his hands. I expected Mrs. Lightman’s reaction, but the Senator could have gone one of two ways – men usually react to me with fear or lust, or a combination. I didn’t think I saw lust in Senator Lightman, and when I took his hand and shook it, I confirmed it. He was on the verge of peeing his pants. I might have believed he wasn’t reacting with any lust because he really had eyes only for his wife, if he weren’t a politician. But I’ve known very few male politicians to be faithful, and even they couldn’t avoid being lustful. Senator Lightman was terrified of me because I was a Proxima and he was a Sapien-centric bigot. Also, probably, because I was a supervillain and a killer and I could drop him dead in a second, turn him inside out, make the skin melt off his flesh or give him cancer, just from the touch of his hand in mine. But I suspected I’d have gotten the same reaction if I’d been a member of the Peace Force, or even a Girl Scout with purple eyes and gold skin trying to sell him cookies. He hated my kind, but he needed me today.

And I intended to use his need to my people’s advantage.

“Introduce me to your family, Senator,” I said.

I felt his adrenaline spike through the skin connection of our clasped hands, but he managed not to show it. He let go of me. “This is my wife, Dot, and our daughter Mindy. She’s eight.”

I walked over to Mindy and knelt down in front of her, prompting more tension and white knuckles from her mother clasping her. “Hello, Mindy,” I said.

“Hi,” she mumbled.

“Do you know who I am?”

“My daddy says you’re some kind of super doctor.”

Super doctor. I liked that. “He’s right. I’m here to help you. I imagine you’ve gotten real tired of being sick.”

She smiled wanly. “Yeah.”

“Let me have your hands.”

“Will it hurt?” Her tone was tired and apathetic, as if it didn’t really matter if it was going to hurt or not. I suspected it was more resignation than apathy.

“Not at all.” I smiled at her. “I’m a super doctor, remember? It doesn’t hurt if I don’t want it to.”

She gave me her small hands and I clasped them in mine. I can’t entirely describe what I feel when I examine a living creature, not in terms that refer to the senses everyone else has. It’s like feeling a symphony or hearing a tapestry. Everything is very complex and interrelated, and I get signals from thousands of processes in the body, but it all melds together into a single big picture. The big picture here was that Mindy’s body was attacking itself. Her bone marrow was busily churning out cancerous white blood cells that didn’t work, filling her bloodstream with useless cells that crowded out and starved the working, useful ones. The pain signals were overwhelming even with the drugs trying to mask them, and the drugs themselves were dulling her mind as much as the fatigue and weakness from the disease.

Like many terminally ill children, she was quiet and accepting, which is constantly mistaken in glurgy human interest stories about terminally ill children for bravery. Children who go out with scarves on their bald heads and run lemonade stands to raise money to research and cure their own illnesses are brave. Children who are too tired to feel fear and have been living with a disease too long to cry about it are just normal human beings. Mindy was a normal human being, and her leukemia was also perfectly normal, something I’d dealt with a hundred times before.

I closed my eyes so I could focus better on Mindy’s internal world. First I triggered the release of endorphins into her bloodstream to mask any pain caused by what I was about to do. The human body rebels against my power, seeing my authority as a violation of its autonomy, and frequently reacts by tattling to the brain about it in a way that the mind perceives as agonizing, but unspecific, pain. As I told Mindy, though, no one feels pain in my hands unless I allow it. As soon as her body was saturated with endorphins and I’d shut down most of the internal sensory trunk lines to the brain, making her internally numb while leaving her ability to sense anything touching her skin, I swept my concentration through her body and killed every immature white blood cell she had. I then targeted the surviving mature white cells and forced them to rapidly replicate and mature, until she had almost a normal white blood cell count and they all worked correctly.

To finish off, I blocked the drugs that hadn’t been working so well anyway, turned the internal nerves back on, and filled Mindy with a combination of endorphin and oxytocin, and other hormones designed to make people feel good. This particular cocktail wouldn’t have sexual effects – Mindy’s brain lacked some of the structures needed to process that, yet, and I always took great care with children not to do anything inappropriate to their age. After what my own father did to me… well, I may be a supervillain, but I am not a child molester, and that makes me better than he was. What I was going for – what I always gave the children I treated – can be best described, if you remember being a kid, as the excitement from knowing you’re about to go to an amusement park, coupled with the pleasure you get from eating ice cream, and all that combined with the warm snuggly feeling you get when you’re cuddled with your parents. Mindy wouldn’t know why, in the future, she looked forward to my visits and felt very warm and positive emotions toward me. She would just know that seeing Dr. Mystery would be the coolest thing ever, and just my presence would be more fun than any doctor’s office lollipop ever was.

Combine such warm and pleasant emotions with the freakish physical appearance of an obvious Proxima, and Mindy would not grow up to share her dad’s bigotry, even if he tried to teach it to her.

“Mindy?” Dot Lightman asked, her voice trembling slightly. “Are you all right?”

Mindy lifted her head. Her skin didn’t look any better, of course – I hadn’t done any cosmetic work – but her eyes were refocusing, turning bright and engaged. “Mommy? I feel good, Mommy. I think the doctor fixed me!”

With my endorphin cocktail chasing away her fatigue temporarily, she leapt to her feet. “Thank you, Super Doctor Mystery! I feel all better!” She twirled around, perhaps to prove to all of us that she was fully healed… and stumbled. “Whoa, dizzy!”

“Slow up there, kiddo,” I said. “You’re not cured. You feel a lot better and you’re going to be a lot better, but you’ve spent a couple of years being sick and you’re not going to be back to your full strength overnight. Take it easy.”

“Is she—is she going to be cured?” her mother asked, looking at me, her lower lip trembling.

“She’s much healthier, right now. But no, as I said, I haven’t cured her yet. I triggered a temporary remission and bolstered her immune system to compensate for what the disease did to it, so she needn’t suffer while she’s waiting for a full cure.” I turned to Senator Lightman. “To cure her, I’ll need to perform three treatments, about two months apart. The cost will be $8,000 per treatment. When we’re done, not only won’t she have leukemia, but the genetic potential for cancer will be purged from her system, so it will be very, very unlikely that she ever get any cancer-like disease again. Short of living on top of a radioactive landfill, of course, but you understand what I mean.”

“Oh, God….” Mrs. Lightman started to cry. “Oh, God, thank you…”

“Don’t cry, Mommy,” Mindy said, and gave her mom a hug. “It’s good news. Don’t cry.”

“I’m crying because I’m so happy,” Mrs. Lightman said.

“I—I don’t know what to say, Doctor. You have a deal. I’d pay anything to save Mindy’s life, and your prices… well, they’re much more reasonable than I was led to assume. I’d pay more than that for hospital treatments, even with the insurance.” I was pretty sure this was a fib – Senators get damn good health insurance. But of course Lightman belonged to the party that thought that health insurance was a privilege, not a right, and downplaying the high quality of his own state-sponsored insurance was probably a reflex by this point.

I smiled at him. “That’s because most of my payment is non-monetary.”

“Non-monetary?”

“Let’s go have a discussion, Senator. I imagine you must have a private office in this house somewhere?”

His wife gave me a hard-eyed look. I returned her look with an “oh, please” expression, just the slightest of eye rolls and sardonic smile. “There’s nothing you can say to me that you can’t say in front of my wife,” Lightman said, his voice hardening.

“Yes, there is,” I said, pleasantly. “You want to tell her all about it when we’re done talking, that’s your prerogative. But I am here to negotiate with a United States Senator, not a husband or a father.”

He stiffened. “All right,” he said slowly. “We can go downstairs to the den.”

“Is it—is it going to be all right?” Dot Lightman asked her husband.

“I don’t see that I have much choice, Dot,” he said. “She’s the only hope Mindy has. You know that.”

“Mommy? Can I play outside?”

“Sure. Sure thing,” Dot said, her voice breaking again. “I’ll play with you.”

“Don’t let her overexert herself,” I said. “As I said, she’s better, not cured, and even if she were cured she’d still need time to recover her energy. She wants to run around and play now because she’s not in pain, but she actually still does need to save her strength.”

“We’ll go for a walk,” Dot said. “How’s that sound, Mindy?”

“Sure, Mommy. We can do that.”

“The den is this way,” Senator Lightman said.

It was a typical suburban finished basement, not nearly as fancy looking as the living room, if you didn’t count the huge projection television. I perched on the still-nice-but-obviously-worn couch, sitting on the back of it. “Let’s get down to it, Senator,” I said. “You’re a member of the Committee to Analyze Parahuman Activity. You’re aware as well as I am that the United States government has been investigating or implementing various techniques to control or eliminate the Proxima population, including laws to create a registry for us as if we’re sex offenders, black ops soldiers with power suits to hunt us down, attempting to find cures for us like we’re a disease, secret databases being maintained in an attempt to identify us in the absence of a registry law… so on and so forth.” I didn’t mention the biowarfare; people who didn’t live through being imprisoned in a government research facility and watching others being injected with various tailored viruses have a tendency to assume that government biowarfare is the stuff of paranoid conspiracy theories, and I doubted anyone had actually let Congress know what was going on there. The others, I was pretty sure he’d been briefed on, if not actively involved with. “And you’re an active supporter of the Human Definition Amendment, which would deprive us of any human rights whatsoever on the basis of junk science.”

The faintest beading of sweat broke out on his forehead. “The United States government hasn’t taken any illegal actions to ‘control’ the Proxima population, as you put it, and certainly not to eliminate you. You must understand, however, that we do have the right and the duty to protect normal humans from people like…”

He hesitated just a moment too long. “Me?”

“I was going to say, people like Caesar Primus or Optometron. But if the rumors about your activities are true, then yes, you. Weren’t you some sort of assassin? An enforcer for a drug lord?”

While technically the description was almost true, the idea of describing David as a “drug lord” almost made me laugh. Almost. I don’t actually have a lot of a sense of humor when it comes to David. “And I was rehabilitated by the Peace Force and today I’m a fine, upstanding citizen who cures little girls of leukemia,” I said.

“That isn’t a lot of comfort to the families of the people you killed.”

“Maybe not. But if I’d been killed by American soldiers in power suits then, your daughter would be out of luck now, wouldn’t she?” I slid off the back of the couch and paced around him. “And this isn’t about me. How many people were saved when the Irregulars stopped that second plane from crashing into the Trade Towers? When they held up the collapsing building so the firefighters could get out? When the Peace Force shored up the levees in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina so the city didn’t flood, or when Maui’s volcano went active and they shut it down again?” The Senator didn’t actually need to know that was a plot of Professor Octohedron’s, if he didn’t already. The Peace Force hadn’t actually broadcast the fact that the disaster had been caused by a Proxima in the first place; I only knew about it because Octohedron continued to believe that he could get into my pants if only he could impress me enough, and he hadn’t actually ever managed to figure out that I wasn’t impressed by grandiose plots to take over the world by threatening to activate volcanoes. “You might owe your life to a Proxima. You are about to owe your daughter’s life. So I want your support for our basic human rights. Oppose the Parahuman Registry, oppose the research to kill us or break us of our powers, and oppose the Human Definition Amendment.”

“The Human Definition Amendment isn’t designed to take away your human rights,” he said. “It’s designed to clarify the rights you do have. I mean, there have to be different ways to handle you people vs. the rest of us. Remember when the ACLU sued on behalf of the Heat Miser? They said that it was cruel and unusual punishment to keep him continuously drugged in prison. And as soon as they won and the drugs were withdrawn, his powers came back and he burned the prison down. 700 people were killed, over 100 guards and the rest of them human inmates, who’d been sentenced to serve time in jail for their crimes, not to burn to death.”

“Then you redefine cruel and unusual punishment to state that methods intended to block Proximas from using superhuman powers to escape from prison are not cruel and are perfectly usual. Passing an amendment to the Constitution that declares that Proximas aren’t human is overkill.”

“It actually declares that humans belong to the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, and that the law should not be automatically extended to grant human rights to people who can destroy our entire planet with a thought just because some bleeding heart doesn’t think they deserve to go to jail for killing hundreds of people.”

“Yes, and by declaring that Homo sapiens promixus does not automatically count as human, it effectively says that we’re not, and we can be shot on sight with no one but the ASPCA to worry about our murders, let alone suffer discrimination in every part of our lives. You do not live with the reality of what being defined as non-human means, Senator. I do.”

“And you, Doctor, don’t live with the reality of inhabiting a world filled with creatures who can kill you with a thought, steal everything you own, destroy your home without even touching it, or make you believe that up is down and black is white.”

I could argue that last point, if I wanted to be a smartass – I lived in the world where there was conservative talk radio, and it had convinced any number of people that up was down and black was white. But that would be sidetracking. “True. But you’re so focused on perceiving yourself as a victim of the existence of Proximas that you’ve given no thought to what it would be like to be one of us. And you really should. Because you have a child, Senator, and she is too young to be confirmed as Sapien or Proxima. You don’t know what she is, and you’re just assuming she’s Sapien. What if she’s Proxima?”

He blinked. “Well, of course I—but she doesn’t have anything in her background – I mean neither her mother nor I have anything unusual, genetically—“

“No one knows what’s causing the sudden explosion in powered humans, Senator, but we do know that it’s some type of mutation. 90% of Proximas have parents who were Sapien. And the number is that low only because some of us have started having kids. If your daughter was a Proxima with two fully Sapien parents, she’d be in the same boat as most Proximas. Including me. So you really need to think about it.”

“Well, I – I certainly wouldn’t treat Mindy any differently if she were – but if she were, you’d know, wouldn’t you?”

“I didn’t check for it. But I could, yes.”

“Well, if she turned out to be, you could just fix it, right? As part of the treatment?”

I stared at him as if I’d just found him on my shoe. “Of course I could. And if she was black, I could make her white and blonde and blue-eyed. And I could change her into a boy if you decided you really wanted a son. Have you any idea how offensive what you just said is?”

“I – I didn’t mean to give offense. I just want Mindy to have a normal life.”

“Most Proximas do. I don't look like this all the time, Senator. When I'm not treating hopeless cases, I live in a nice little townhouse, with two cats and a cockatiel. I go dancing with men friends on weekends, I buy groceries, I do my laundry. I choose to look like this when I'm treating people like your daughter, because I have no desire to be kidnapped and pressed into the service of crime lords or the government."

"Why would the government kidnap you? Proximas have rights. If you’ve served your time for your previous crimes, and committed no new ones--"

"--I would still have the power to make old men young, cure impotence and infertility, heal disease and scarring, change people's appearances... come on now, Senator, don't be naive. If you had a way to make me heal your daughter without paying my price, you'd do it. And I think you're basically a good man, who’s concerned for the child he loves. Can you say none of your colleagues would want me to heal them? To restore lost youth, or whatever they had lost?" I thought of the white room then, the snipers with guns outside ready to blow my head off if the important old men screaming under my hands didn’t get up and walk free completely healed when I was done. Never again.

"I... suppose power corrupts. There are some bad elements in any system, but that doesn't mean the system is evil."

"I didn’t say the system was evil. I said it’s not designed to protect people like me. And if you and your fellows have their way, it’ll be even harder for me to live a normal, safe life.” I shook my head. "We're sidetracking. If Mindy turns out to be a Proxima, she could still have an entirely normal and happy life, so long as you didn't reject her for it and the government didn't kill her for it."

"I would never reject Mindy. No matter what. If-- if she was a parahuman--"

"Then your opinions on appropriate treatment of Proximas would be rather different, wouldn't they?"

He sighed. “Look, I have a constituency, Doctor Mystery. They elected me into office to protect them and serve them, and they have ideas as to what constitutes doing that. If I do something that they don’t approve of, I won’t have the power they’ve given me for very long.”

I flopped down on his couch again. “Oh, baloney. You mean that if you can’t fearmonger about hidden Proximas living among us and the draconian measures the Daddy State will take under your watch to protect the poor scared soccer moms and NASCAR dads, you can’t get elected.” I sat up and leaned forward. “It’s all bullshit. The tide of history always favors greater human rights, greater freedoms, greater protections for minorities vs. mobs. And it always works out better in the end that way. I understand that you have to protect yourself from lunatics who shoot death rays out of their elbows, but you know, you also have to protect yourself from lunatics who break into the McDonalds’ with a gun and start shooting people, and somehow it was your party who decided it was an unacceptable infringement on your freedom to hunt, shoot intruders, and generally feel like manly men to make people undergo background checks to get assault weapons.”

“The Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms.”

“The Constitution wouldn’t say that if you passed an amendment redefining a ‘well-regulated militia’ as the National Guard. Which I’m not saying you should. I’m in favor of your right to protect yourself with a gun. I’m in favor of your right to shoot animals for fun if you feel like it; I’m a Darwinist and you’re a predator. It’s in your genes. Go shoot deer if you want. But the Constitution currently states that I am a human being, because it doesn’t say that I’m not, and I was born in the United States to two human beings, share 99.9% of my DNA with you, speak your language, look like you, and have sex with you. Well, not you personally, but Sapiens men. So if it’s so vitally important to preserve the right to bear arms, because it’s in the Constitution, that it’s okay to let sociopaths get guns and shoot up college campuses, then it is vastly more important to make sure that every child born in this country to human parents is defined as human.

“If you pass this Definition of Humanity amendment in order to protect your constituency, and Mindy turns out to be a Proxima, then she can be raped and her rapist could be charged with bestiality at best, because she wouldn’t be legally a child who can be molested, she’d be legally an animal. She could be killed, and the most her killer could be charged with is animal cruelty. No school would have to take her, no hospital would have to treat her diseases, no restaurant would have to let her in to eat with you. You would have to fight a battle to get her treated in a way that you humans take for granted, every time. Want her to die in a car accident because the paramedics didn’t want to treat a Proxima? Want her to die in a fire because the firefighters didn’t want to risk themselves going into a burning building for someone who isn’t even human? There are better ways to defend Sapiens than making it legally open season on us.”

“But you’re against those too. The Parahuman Registry would allow us to track dangerous people without having to deprive any of you of basic civil rights.”

“Except I’ve never heard of a version of it suggesting that only parahuman criminals be added to the registry.”

“Well, dangerous parahumans haven’t necessarily committed crimes yet. But for instance, if your next door neighbor turns up dead of a heart attack and everyone knows you were fighting with him, isn’t it important that the police know you have the power to stop people’s hearts by touching them?”

“If your next door neighbor has a gun, isn’t it important that you know about it so you can keep your daughter from playing in his yard?”

“Most gun owners are law abiding citizens, and if someone is killed with a gun we already have laws on the books to help the police track down the killer. If someone is killed with a superpower, we wouldn’t even necessarily know to look for a superpower.”

“So educate the cops better on superpowers. Most Proximas are law abiding citizens. If you kill your neighbor by hitting him over the head with a frying pan, does that mean you needed to be on some sort of registry of frying pan owners?” I started pacing again. “It’s irrelevant in any case. I don’t care what your personal beliefs are. I care that you love your daughter and want her to be healthy.”

“So you’re blackmailing me.”

“Blackmail? I’m demanding payment. When your campaign contributors give you money for re-election, they’re not blackmailing you to expect that you’re going to show them some quid pro quo. I’m offering you something far, far more valuable than a few dollars in your re-election coffers; I’m offering you your daughter’s life and health. I think expecting a little quid pro quo is not unreasonable.”

“And what if I refused? Would you let her die?”

At one point that would have been a tough one; in this line of work you have to appear to be compassionate, but you also have to be tough or the patients will walk all over you. I had had plenty of experience dealing with this particular conundrum, though. “Do you know what I did for Mindy today? Do you understand her disease at all?”

“I don’t know what you did, no. You keep saying you made her better but you didn’t cure her. But I do know something about her disease. The doctors tell me that she’s making too many white blood cells, and it’s crowding out and killing the rest of her blood.”

“Close. They’re immature, cancerous blood cells, so they don’t work to protect her from disease the way mature white blood cells would. This lowers her general immunity, and yes, it clogs up her bloodstream and takes resource away from working cells. What I did today was to kill all the immature cells and regenerate some of the mature ones. She still has leukemia; she’s still making too many immature cells. Without a full treatment that will never stop. What I’ve done is to ease her symptoms. Until she builds up too many immature cells again, she’ll feel better.” I leaned on the wall, arms folded. “I’m perfectly capable of doing this every six months and never actually curing her. She’ll feel better, and she’ll have a happy, normal life, as long as she gets her treatments on time. The one time she misses a treatment, though – maybe because the government kidnapped me, arrested me, killed me or took my powers away – she’ll have full-blown leukemia again, and within a year or two she’ll die.” I pushed off the wall. “So you can support me up front because it’s the right thing to do for the person who gave you back your daughter’s life, or you can hedge and haw and refuse to get with my program, and if so your daughter will be well for exactly as long as I am able to continue treating her. The very laws you want to pass that will harm me, will block my ability to heal her sooner or later, and then she’ll die, and it’ll be your fault.”

“And how do I know that if I promise to do as you ask, you really will heal Mindy and you won’t just do what you just said?”

“How do I know that if I really heal Mindy, you won’t go back on your word and start pushing for the Human Definition Amendment again? It’s a matter of trust, Senator. You trust me, I trust you. Or you don’t trust me, I don’t trust you. Tit for tat. What’s it going to be?”

He took a deep breath. “I’m not going to just rubber stamp your suggestions. Even if that was the right thing to do for my constituency, and it’s not. I’m going to study the situation and try to do the best thing to protect my people and yours. You can accept that or not.”

“All right, I’ll accept that, with one caveat. The Human Definition Amendment is totally off-limits. You can switch your support to the Inclusive Humanity Amendment, or just drop your support of Human Definition, but if you don’t publicly do one or the other within the month Mindy does not get fully cured. The other stuff, do the studies you want to do, but I think you’ll find that when you look at Proximas as if we are people and not weird animal things with superpowers, you’ll find it a lot easier to come up with ways to help protect your kind without harming mine.”

Lightman nodded. “All right, Doctor. Then we have a deal. When do you want to perform the first treatment?”

“If you’ve got $8,000 lying around in a checking account, we can do it today.”

“I do. Who do I make the check out to? I don’t imagine you can cash a check made out to Doctor Mystery.”

“Make it out to Miracle of Life, LLC.” I had about twenty-seven of these shell companies I used to funnel my various payments through, since even Senators typically had a hard time coming up with $8,000 in small unmarked bills on short notice, and a girl’s gotta eat. Playing politics is all well and good, but I needed to cover the mortgage and the gas money for my various trips to clients, plus the funds for my various Activities of Mad Science. Just because you can manipulate any organic tissue with a touch, doesn’t mean you get your beakers and retorts and Petri dishes for free. “Let’s go upstairs. I’m sure Mindy is eager to begin freeing herself from this disease.”

“Of course.”

At the top of the stairs, I reached out for his hand. Too afraid of giving offense to refuse me, he took it, and I shook with him. “Pleasure doing business with you, Senator. Go call your daughter in, give me a check and we’ll do this thing.”

“Thank you, Dr. Mystery. I may not entirely approve of your politics, but thank you for giving my daughter back her life.”

He wouldn’t be thanking me so much if he had known I’d just planted a tiny clump of slow-growing cancerous cells deep in his brain. It’d be a year from now before he started feeling any symptoms, and that would land in the middle of his re-election campaign. If he did what I wanted after I finished healing his daughter and we were on good terms, I’d find some excuse to come by and heal him or prune it down again. If not… there was a reason I was a feared supervillain even though most people knew me, if they knew me at all, as some kind of uber-doctor. You didn’t double-cross Dr. Mystery and survive it. Ever.

Well, unless you were Dr. Suryabati Chandrasekhar. Then you got any number of free passes.

***

The truth was, I was being something of a hypocrite.

I was offended at Lightman’s suggestion that I make his daughter a Sapiens if she turned out to be a Proxima, but not for the reason I told him. The difference between a Proxima becoming a Sapien and a Sapien becoming Proxima isn’t the difference between black changing to white or male changing to female. The difference was described by Plato as a man raised in the darkness leaving the cave to see the light of the sun, vs. a man raised in the sunlight doomed to spend the rest of his life in a cave. Making a Proxima a Sapiens is like giving someone a lobotomy, or a clitoridectomy, or binding her feet until she can’t walk. It’s an obscenity, a Harrison Bergeron nightmare of breaking the best down to the level of the mediocre, taking away a birthright one was born with.

Making a Sapien a Proxima is, on the other hand, one of my great callings in life.

Mindy Lightman wasn’t a Proxima before I touched her. But she would be, before I was done. I did a preliminary assessment of her DNA while I was performing the first treatment, and I stored a small amount of her cellular matter in a pocket under the skin of my hand, to study at length later. I’d determine how much energy her mitochondria could supply her and which latent powers-complex genes she had, and which powers they were likely to ignite into. If she had something distressing, like death touch or world-shattering TK or the gene for turning blue, I’d edit the complex over the next two sessions into something more palatable for the child of a public figure, something frilly and unthreatening. Maybe the ability to make pretty light shows, or fly. Most flyers loved it, and it didn’t seem to frighten Sapiens as much as some other powers did.

When I left the Lightmans’, now back in my middle-aged lady persona, I headed first to the bank to deposit the check. Senators whose daughter’s lives are on the line don’t give me checks that bounce, but they do take time to clear, so the sooner I got it in, the better. And then I dumped the rental car at the airport, changed form in the bathroom, and got on the Metro to head back home.

****

Science fact: There is only one gene that determines the difference between a Sapiens and a Proxima.

To most people this seems insane. Proximas come in an entire extra range of colors besides the human norm, have powers ordinary humans can only dream of, and get energy to fuel these powers from a source that is frankly incomprehensible. We just have to be a separate species, in most people’s minds. When Proximas were first discovered, there was a huge push to label us a fully separate species – Homo superior (thankfully, that one got shot down real fast) or Homo proximus, “the man who comes next.” Scientists – not me at the time, since I was too young, but reputable geneticists and biologists – had to constantly point out that the definition of a species is that they cannot viably interbreed. The children of superpowered and ordinary humans were themselves perfectly fertile. Ergo, we cannot be a separate species.

But we hadn’t mapped the genome then, and we didn’t know exactly why Proximas had powers. So scientists made, in my opinion, a mistake. They agreed to classify us as a separate sub-species.

You’ve grown up being told that you are Homo sapiens. What you might not know is that technically, if you’re not a parahuman, you are actually Homo sapiens sapiens. There were several other subspecies of humans, all extinct, such as Homo sapiens idaltu (elderly wise man). It is still scientific nonsense to call us a subspecies, when we’re only different by one gene – to put this in perspective, parents and children differ by many, many more than one gene – and in fact the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature keeps debating changing it to Homo sapiens sapiens proximus or dropping the designate proximus entirely. But the scientific evidence that we aren’t even a separate subspecies gets even less play in the media than studies that show that men and women are alike, if such a thing is possible. And at least the Homo sapiens proximus nomenclature reinforces that we are of the human species.

The trouble is, most people don’t know that the true name of Homo sapiens is actually Homo sapiens sapiens. So when they hear the short designators – Sapiens vs. Proxima – they assume that our species is Homo proximus. We’re widely believed to be an entirely separate species, and it doesn’t help that high-profile supervillains like Caesar Primus (who is 2,000 years old and knows as much as any Roman gladiator about science, which is to say, diddly jack), or Professor Octohedron (a brilliant physicist and inventor, but he knows about as much biology as I know about fixing my car, and let me put it this way, the last time I ended up dead on the side of the road I needed a friendly dude passing by to tell me I’d run out of oil) are constantly spouting off about how we are a new, superior species. Informed laypeople and doctors usually know better, but the truth – that we are different by only one gene – is so appallingly counterintuitive that you almost need to be a geneticist or an evolutionary biologist to get it.

But here’s the truth.

The human genome is packed with genes that don’t do anything. Most come from our evolutionary history. You may have heard that we are less than 1% genetically different from chimpanzees. That 1% consists mostly of control genes, which govern when, how and if the other genes turn on.

It turns out that some of those genes generate superpowers, under the right conditions. One of them turns melanin, the brown pigment of humans, blue in the presence of a hormone called catalysine. Others use catalysine to activate superhuman abilities. All humans carry some of these genes. But only a very, very tiny number – about 1 in 10,000 – have the gene that codes for the creation of catalysine.

Like testosterone, catalysine has two surges in a person’s life cycle. One is pre-natally. The amount generated is small and doesn’t pass the placental barrier, so no, pregnant women do not manifest superpowers when carrying a Proxima baby. That’s an urban myth. The surge pre-natally does little, usually, except to prepare the brain to control superpowers someday, creating a brain nucleus and appropriate wiring. In cases where the child has two Proxima genes – for example, the child of two Proxima parents-- the amount of catalysine created pre-natally might be enough to distort the child’s appearance, begin converting melanin into azurin, or awaken a low level of superpower.

When the child hits puberty, the same genes that turn on sex hormones turn on catalysine production. The superpowers appear, and wire up to the brain structures created in utero. If the child has the gene for azurin conversion, their pigment changes from brown to blue – so pale red-haired and blonde white children suddenly develop purple, green or blue hair, while brown-skinned children turn blue all over. (Azurin is also rare. Only about 5% of all people carry the gene for azurin production, and only Proximas ever display it. Non-Proximas with the azurin mutation never express it, and end up creating perfectly normal melanin, because they are never exposed to catalysine.)

The “power mitochondria” are another pan-human phenomenon that only expresses itself in Proximas. All living cells on Earth contain tiny organelles called mitochondria – practically separate living things, with their own DNA, they use oxygen and sugar to generate the chemical that powers all life, ATP. Power mitochondria vastly overproduce ATP, and no one knows where they get the energy to do it – it’s like they suck potential energy out of the universe and convert it to life force. But they do this only when activated by catalysine within the cell. About 1/3rd of humans have power mitochondria. In the presence of the Proxima gene, these people generate energy above and beyond what they take in from food and air, which is then consumed by their superpowers. Without power mitochondria, a Proxima must draw from their own life force to fuel their superpower, which makes their powers pretty weak. The exact same genes for telekinesis can code for a person that can lift 70 lbs with their mind with effort vs. a person who can lift an aircraft carrier out of the water and break it in half, depending on the presence and output of the power mitochondria. Since mitochondria are passed by the mother, Proximas who inherit their power from a powerful mother will always be very powerful themselves, whereas Proximas who inherit from a powerful Proxima father depend entirely on the hidden status of their mother for their own strength.

(Funny fact, here: when Proximas were first discovered, male Proximas freely dated, married and fathered children on human women, because our entire society says it’s okay for men to have wives who are weaker than they are. Proxima women, on the other hand, mostly stuck to their own kind. In the seven years since we discovered the role of the power mitochondria, we have seen a dramatic reversal in which powerful Proxima men will not marry or get serious with human women unless they consider themselves “childfree” or have had the human woman’s mitochondria analyzed for power status, and more and more Proxima women are dating Sapiens men.)

So most of what goes into making a Proxima is actually in a vast percentage of the human population – 30% have power mitochondria, pretty much all of them have powers-complex. It’s the presence of the single gene that codes for catalysine production that makes a person Proxima as opposed to Sapiens. My belief was that Proximas would not be safe from the fear and envy of Sapiens unless we were normalized. The more Proximas there were, the more the law would adapt to and accommodate us and our needs and the less we’d need to fear the mob of Sapiens out to kill or control us. So my primary work, since I became Dr. Mystery, had been to increase the number of Proximas by giving as many Sapiens the Proxima gene as I can.

In my early experiments, when I used uncontrolled methods like retroviruses to mutate people, there were high casualty rates. Sapiens adults whose brains have not been exposed to catalysine in utero can’t control whatever superpowers they develop if they suddenly start making catalysine. So I started working primarily with children, usually terminally or chronically ill children that I could get direct access to. My power can create new brain pathways, and in a child or teen, with a developing brain, I can do it transparently, with no one noticing. Adults cannot experience sudden brain growth and change without noticing that something’s wrong – memories suddenly becoming lost, well-developed skills becoming weaker, mood swings, etc—so I only alter adults into Proximas if they request it. I often modify women of child-bearing age so that all their eggs carry the Proxima gene, ensuring that they’ll give birth to Proximas if they ever have kids. It’s harder with men, because men are generating new sperm all the time – I’d have to alter the spermatogonia, and since they’re part of the body, the body’s immune system might notice that they are genetically different from the other cells and attack them, making the man infertile. So I only make men into Proxima-fathers if I have plenty of time to work with them and tweak their immune systems, if necessary – and if they’re likely to have kids. Gay men coming to me to save them from AIDS and 70-year-olds who don’t want to get Alzheimer’s are usually not worth modifying reproductively.

The Peace Force were aware of my work, and opposed it. They believed it was wrong of me to change people’s genes without their consent. Technically, maybe they were right, but come on, what sane person would object to having superpowers? The only reason anyone would not want to be a Proxima is the prejudice against us, and I was working on that too. So I had to maintain a low profile because every so often the Peace Force would take it into their heads to try to capture me. I’m pretty sure this wasn’t fully legal – I was pardoned for my activities as Megamorph by Bill Clinton (did you know that Hillary Clinton once had breast cancer? No? Well, neither does anyone else), and nothing illegal I’d done as Dr. Mystery could be proven in a court of law. But the law hadn’t caught up with Proxima abilities, so the Peace Force never overly concerned themselves with whether they could prove wrongdoing or not. Their mentor and leader, Dr. Suryabati Chandrasekhar, aka Doctor Sun, was a telepath, and if she said, “Bad guy! Go fetch!” they would jump like puppydogs after a thrown stick.

So I lived in Baltimore, in a townhome in the Woodberry neighborhood, on Television Hill, because living directly under the broadcast tower generated enough interference that Suri couldn’t find me telepathically. I’d have preferred Little Italy, or better yet, a real city like New York or Philly (and I’d come way down in the world, admitting that Philly is a real city), but New York was far too close to Suri, whose base of operations was in Manhattan, and a lot of my work was done with politicians, making Baltimore or DC more convenient than Philly. And DC had the Special Service, human police in power suits who patrolled to protect the Capitol from parahuman attack. I never felt safe in DC. My Woodberry home had civilians living on both sides and a children’s day care across the street, ensuring that the Peace Force couldn’t attack me in force – they’d know the threat to civilians from a power battle would be too great to risk it politically for my sake (and to be fair, most of them are goody-two-shoes hero types who wouldn’t risk civilians, especially preschool children, even if they had perfect political cover for the operation.) So I figured that if Suri ever found me, she’d still think twice about siccing her dogs on me.

Also, the Light Rail, Baltimore’s sad and pathetic substitute for a subway, had a stop near my home. I didn’t learn to drive until I was 28, and I still hated it with a passion. I was a Brooklyn girl – give me a city with buses and subways and railways, so I wouldn’t have to dodge hurtling chunks of death metal just to get where I was going. From DC’s Metro, after I dropped my rental car at the airport, I changed at Union Station to the Camden line, took it to the baseball stadium in Baltimore, and changed there for the Light Rail. This took far longer than a car would have, but didn’t involve me being isolated in a tiny box with no source of living organic matter other than my own flesh and facing careening metal boxes coming right for me. It also didn’t involve traffic jams, which are brutal on the DC Beltway. A short walk from my stop later, and I was home.

As I unlocked my front door, Brian the cockatiel chirped at me wildly, flapping his wings in his cage. I’m really proud of Brian – in some ways he’s my greatest work. He used to be a man, or the head of a man, who attempted to rape me once. The truly pathetic thing was that Brian had been a good-looking guy, wiry and blond, the way I like them, and if he’d been willing to wait half an hour I would happily have had sex with him. But he hadn’t wanted sex, he’d wanted rape – the only reason he dated women and went back to their houses with them, rather than jumping out of the bushes with a knife, was that he was a lawyer and knew that a handsome man with money who date rapes a woman will basically never, ever be convicted. People think rapists have to be hard up for sex, or have to somehow look evil – the idea that a handsome, charming guy who could get any woman he wanted would actually prefer to hold screaming women down and force them when he could get consensual sex with the exact same woman instead breaks people’s brains. They assume the woman must be lying, because what man who could get mutual fun would prefer to commit rape? No one wants to admit how common misogynistic sadists actually are or how normal they look.

I found out from Brian that he’d date-raped ten women before me, that only two had tried to press charges, and the cops had refused to take the charges in one case and upset the other one so badly with their disbelief that she’d dropped the charges. I found this out while I had him paralyzed but still able to feel sensation, his voice made too hoarse to do more than whisper no matter how much he suffered, on a cot in the basement. Over the course of the two weeks that I used him in experiments, he told me his entire life story, amidst lots of self-justifications, begging, pleading and promising to change his ways. Then I started turning his body parts into animals, bit by bit. The rats and mice I made of his arms and legs didn’t come out right, and they died. The cockroaches who used to be his testicles were actually very robust, but after the cat knocked over the terrarium I was keeping them in, I had to get an exterminator to kill them because who wants cockroaches in their house? I was actually quite sad when the puppy I made out of his guts wouldn’t wake up and live – sometimes they just won’t come alive no matter what I do. Living things are very complex, and it’s more an art than a science to do things like make life into different life.

Since at that point, Brian had no way to digest food or ingest water, and he was therefore only a day or two away from death, I finally put him out of his misery by turning his head into a cockatiel and his torso into an iguana, a gecko, and a handful of tropical fish. Nothing lived longer than a week except the cockatiel, which so far had lasted three years. I often wondered, since I’d used some of the original brain tissue in making Brian’s new cockatiel brain, if he had any dim sense that he used to be human.

I fed Brian a cracker, re-absorbed my shoes into my flesh, and took back my original human form before plopping down on the couch to relax and await my cats. My actual body was permanently frozen at about age 22 or so; I changed it so often, I’d never really had the opportunity to let it naturally age. I could have forced it up to 36, where I really was, if I had to, but why bother? No one was going to see me and think less of me for looking too childish. My natural form is about 5’4” and built like a gymnast – tiny breasts, thickly muscled legs and arms, a rounded and balanced body with a low center of gravity and nothing sticking way out of line with the rest of it. For gymnastics – my childhood passion – and for combat, it was a fantastic body, and I used it for years as Megamorph before it occurred to me that maybe I should hide my true face if I was going to be a criminal. For instantly commanding respect, making men drool and women envy, or sending the signal “I AM A SERIOUS CRIMINAL MASTERMIND”, it wasn’t so good. It was short, the face looked too young and soft (and too much like a young, soft Gillian Anderson – people in med school actually used to call me “Scully”), and a body perfectly proportioned for gymnastics or martial arts isn’t all that attractive by the psycho standards of our culture. But it was my body, and in my home, with the shades drawn and the security system on, I went back to it because it was me.

As I wiggled my toes on my shag carpet and then propped my feet up on my coffee table, I wondered where my cats were. They were well-fed cats, but their heightened metabolisms made them constantly hungry, and they knew I was a sucker for giving them treats when I’d first come home. Normally, they’d be leaping on me minutes after my arrival. This worried me. If I had accidentally shut them in the bedroom, Angelkitty would probably pee on my ceiling to express her displeasure and Pikachu might have destroyed my furniture with a few good lightning blasts by now.

My cats were also experiments. I’d been curious to see if the genetic structures I’d observed in other mammals that seemed related to the human powers-complex were in fact superpowers, so I got myself a pair of abandoned newborn kittens and in between the droppers of kitten formula (I really drew the line at making cat milk in my own breasts; those little things have teeth very early), I modified them to generate catalysine. The female promptly grew bird wings (which didn’t attach to the right spot on her back and were too small; she’d never have flown if I hadn’t heavily modified them for her), and the male developed the ability to shoot lightning out of his paws, so I named them Angelkitty and Pikachu. (Technically, if you have seen the Pokemon cartoon, which I admit I have, Pikachu is a mouse that shoots electricity, or something rodentlike anyway, but come on, there aren’t exactly any mythological figures of cats that shoot electricity.) Angelkitty’s a Siamese and Pikachu is mostly white with some orange. They don’t have power mitochondria – that does appear to be a human thing – so they eat like pigs. I could feed six ordinary cats off what my two eat, but they remain extraordinarily svelte, almost feral in their slimness. And so if they weren’t here to pester me for fish treats, something was wrong.

I got up and went out to the kitchen. To my relief, my cats were still noshing on their tuna fish, which amazingly it looked like they had barely touched before I came home. (I always fed them human food. Why not? I had the money to keep them in canned tuna rather than cat food, and they loved the stuff.) Pikachu looked up at me, gave me a meow that I interpreted as “Oh, you’re home, good,” and then went back to his meal.

Wait a minute. There was more food in the bowl than there had been when I said good-bye to them this morning. And it was beyond the realm of possibility that they’d left so much food untouched for so long, anyway. And the tuna looked fresh out of the can. So how—

“I was wondering when you were going to get home,” a woman’s voice said behind me. I was already spinning to face her, preparing to leap at her, but as soon as I saw her I realized it was hopeless. “Don’t you ever feed these cats? They look like they’re starving.”

Ciana Kim, aka Sapphire, my once-classmate and current dire nemesis, was standing – well, floating—above my stairs in her traditional blue bubble, her features slightly obscured by the blue distortion and concealed behind her mask. The combat leader of the Peace Force was in my house.

I backed up. I couldn’t take Sapphire directly. Her power was to generate spherical or toroid magnetic fields, which glowed blue due to the way they bent light, hence her name. I needed organic channels to send my power through—behind her force field, Sapphire was totally safe from me, because I couldn’t touch her. I wasn’t safe from her, though. She could generate a force field around me, trapping me, any time she wanted.

There was a switch by the door to my basement, labeled “FURNACE – DO NOT TOUCH,” that would actually activate an EMP. All the computer and electronic equipment I had in my house outside the Faraday cage of the basement would fry, but Sapphire’s power would fail as well, and I could leap on her before she could reset her power. Or, if I didn’t really want to replace my MP3 player, phones, and the laptop in the bedroom, perhaps I could grab Pikachu and throw him at her. He’d be startled enough to discharge a bolt, and the electrical surge should pop her field like a soap bubble. I knew I had a faster reaction time than Sapphire – after years of modifying and tuning up my nervous system, I’m faster than anyone who doesn’t have super-speed as a specific power – so I should be able to grab her and neutralize her power or knock her out before she could get a force field back up again. I was reluctant to do that because Pikachu was my kitty and throwing him at superheroes seemed kind of mean, even though I knew he wouldn’t be hurt, but the EMP generator could theoretically blow out TV Hill, and then I’d have to dodge swarms of reporters trying to find out why they suddenly couldn’t get on the air anymore.

I stalled for time. “They’ve got very fast metabolisms. I feed them all the time, but they’ll pester anyone they meet for more.”

Sapphire rolled her eyes. “Oh, stand down, Meg. If I was here to capture you or beat you up, I’d have done it before you knew I was here.”

She had a point. Sapphire wasn’t stupid, and she had completely gotten the drop on me, to the point that I was actually really embarrassed about it. “So what do you want? Cooking advice? I always prefer to replace the generic vegetable oil with olive or canola, it’s easier on the heart.” The last time I’d been in the same household as her, Ciana Kim had refused to learn to cook, for very similar reasons to her refusal to learn hand-to-hand combat.

She ignored my jab. “Doctor Sun sent me. She needs your help and she asked me to ask you.”

I blinked. Doctor Sun wanted my help? Cold day in hell. But it’d have to get a lot colder before I’d say yes. “She wants my help? And she actually thinks I might agree? Excuse me, but the last time I interacted with any of you people you wrecked my lab, ruined four years of work and set me back half a million dollars.”

“You were infecting children’s vaccines with a retrovirus. Did you seriously think we’d let you just get away with it?”

“All it would have done was make them into Proximas. What do you think I am?”

“Someone who mutates people against their will. And how do you know that’s all it would have done? Retroviruses mutate. Besides, it’s still wrong to change people without their consent. How do you know those kids would even have wanted superpowers?”

“Oh, be real. Who wouldn’t want superpowers?”

“If I wasn’t a Proxima, I might have been an Olympic gold medalist.”

She was telling the truth. One of the things that annoyed me so much about Ciana was how close her life had been to mine, minus the dysfunctional family. I, too, had had Olympic dreams once, and my coach had told me when I was 11 that I might seriously make it as a contender. But no matter how good I’d been, I’d never really had a chance; if my parents hadn’t died when I was 13, some other aspect of my family’s screwed-up-ness would have ruined it for me.

Ciana Kim, however, had had a good and loving family who’d pushed her hard in the belief that she could achieve anything. She was a third-generation Korean American from California and her parents were doctors or something like that, and they’d stood behind her every step of the way. Even after everything had fallen apart in my life and I’d basically become a thug for hire, I had followed the Olympic gymnastic news, so I’d known all about this as it was happening.

Ciana was originally to be the USA’s representative to the Olympics in Seoul for women’s artistic gymnastics. Much was made in the media of a Korean American going to Seoul to represent America, but Ciana had been very photogenic and full of great soundbites about how she was as American as apple pie and she was honored to represent our great country and she was so looking forward to bringing a medal home for the US and she was following in Mary Lou Retton’s footsteps and blah blah blah. And then, a week before the Olympics, it had come out that she was a Proxima. They’d finally figured out that doing a blood test for catalysine would find any Proxima with an active power.

The truth is that even now, twenty years later, as an experienced superhero who uses her powers all the time, Ciana still can’t use her powers invisibly. There’s always a shiny blue blob there. And she had no training with her powers when she was 16, so it would have been even more implausible that she could have somehow used her powers to secretly cheat. I would be disqualified from a Sapiens competition in gymnastics in any sane world because of what my powers actually are, but Ciana was disqualified solely from anti-Proxima prejudice (and, to be fair, probably some anti-Asian prejudice from the Americans whose job it would have been to advocate for her). The Americans paid for their prejudices when Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union took home all the women’s gymnastics medals (I don’t like Ciana, but I’m pretty sure she would have won at least a silver in something, if not a gold.) Ciana was recruited by Dr. Chandrasekhar to learn how to use her powers and eventually join the Peace Force, Dr. Chandrasekhar’s UN-supported superhero team.

So it wasn’t that I had no respect for Ciana’s loss, but it irritated me that she saw the problem as being that she was a Proxima rather than that the Olympic committee was scared of Proximas. And also, that being an Olympic medalist was better than being a superhero. “Yeah yeah, you could have had your moment of glory, and nowadays you’d be selling sneakers and breakfast cereal to pay the bills, assuming anyone even remembered you at all. What’s Mary Lou Retton doing with her life?”

“She’s been an Olympics commentator, and she’s a motivational speaker who supports physical fitness.”

Trust Ciana to actually know this. “And that’s better than being a superhero how? You save lives, you have an action figure, millions of little girls look up to you—“

“—I wear a mask when I save lives because otherwise supervillains or stalkers might hunt me down, no one knows my real name, my family aren’t allowed to tell anyone what I do for a living, I’ll probably never have a normal life with a husband and kids—“

“--You could marry some guy and quit the superhero business any time you wanted to, it’s just your overblown sense of responsibility that says you can’t quit your job to have babies until your powers give out on you, because you think the world needs you, and if that’s the case where would they have been if you hadn’t been a Proxima?”

“Someone else would have taken my place if I hadn’t been a Proxima. And all of this is besides the point; no matter how great you or even I might think it is to have superpowers, the fact is that you were planning to infect helpless babies with a retrovirus that would have mutated them. Some of them might have died of it. Some might have been killed by their families for being Proximas once they manifested. You don’t have the right to play God that way.”

“Nobody would have died of my virus,” I retorted. “I tested it thoroughly ahead of time. But you also notice, I haven’t done it again.”

“Because you know we’ll stop you.”

“Because I listened to your arguments that retroviruses are unstable and highly prone to mutation, and I decided that maybe you have a point.”

“Then why did you bring it up?”

“You didn’t even try to just persuade me. You just blew up my lab! Do you know how many vials of vaccine I hadn’t modified yet you destroyed?”

“All of this is pointless,” Sapphire snapped. “I’m wasting time arguing with you when Doctor Sun is dying. Are you coming or not?”

Wait, what? Dying?

I had been a half-crazed killer with no self-esteem, no sense of myself being able to be or do anything good, no belief that anyone could ever care about me – at least not without dying for it – after David died. Dr. Chandrasekhar had taken me in and taught me that I could have a better destiny than being a tool for monsters to use to kill each other with; that I didn’t have to be a monster myself. I could use my powers for good. I could help people. I could be a decent person.

Viewed from her perspective, I suppose, it didn’t last – I freely admit I am a supervillain and I do highly unethical things, up to and including killing people. But I do it for a cause I believe in. I do it to save my people from the bio-engineered diseases I was forced to participate in creating at Sonnebend. I do it so girls with superpowers who are going to medical school to learn how to save lives will not be kidnapped, stripped of their powers except when convenient for their captors, raped, tortured and forced to use their powers to heal enemies and kill their own kind, by agents of their own government. I do it so my people can enjoy the same rights and privileges as every other human on this planet. And the fact that I can fight for a cause, that I can see myself as a person with a noble goal of my own… I owe that entirely to Doctor Sun.

No matter what she does to me, no matter what she orders her Peace Force to do, I can’t ever get away from that.

“Dying of what?”

“She was kidnapped and raped by Caesar Primus. When she escaped, she was two months’ pregnant, but the doctors say it seems more like six months. The child is growing too rapidly for her to handle it, and it’ll kill her.”

Oh, God.

My heart started pounding, my throat went dry. I could feel the adrenaline surging, my sympathetic nervous system revving up for a totally inappropriate fight-or-flight response. I couldn’t stop imagining the reality behind Sapphire’s words. It didn’t help that I’d once had sex with Primus myself – consensual, sort of, but I could entirely too easily imagine what it’d be like to be raped by him, without powers to protect you. And Primus was immune to telepathy, so effectively Suri would have been helpless. God, no. I didn’t want to think about that.

So I was flippant, and cold. “Doctor Sun’s a woman of the world. You’re telling me she’s never heard of an abortion?”

“She doesn’t want an abortion. She says she won’t compound Primus’ act by taking an innocent life.”

“When did Doctor Sun turn into a pro-lifer?”

“She says the baby has a mind and she won’t kill it.” Sapphire floated herself down onto my dining room floor, still surrounded by a protective bubble but no longer on my stairs. “Are you going to help, or not?”

“I’m a feminist Darwinist. I’m morally opposed to letting a fetus conceived in rape live. It lets dangerous genes persist in the population. Suri knows that.”

Sapphire sighed explosively. “Fine. I knew you weren’t going to be any help, but Doctor Sun believed in you. I’ll just go tell her I was right and she was wrong.”

“What is this supposed to be, reverse psychology?”

“Nothing reverse about it. I knew before I got here that I would be wasting my time. You’re a killer with no conscience; why Doctor Sun ever thought you might help, I have no idea.”

“Because she knows me better than you.” I stepped forward. “If this is reverse psychology bullshit, it isn’t necessary. I’ve known I was going to agree to help you since you told me she was dying. And if you really believe what you’re saying, then nyaah nyaah nyaah. I’m a doctor; everything I do, I do to save lives. And at least I have to try to persuade Doctor Sun to abort the thing. Besides, if she was raped by Primus she might have injuries she could need my help with.” Primus had hammered at me like he was trying to break my pelvis, and without my powers he might actually have done so. And I’d voluntarily gone to bed with him. What he’d do to a woman he was raping, I really really didn’t want to imagine.

I didn’t mention to Sapphire that this was partly my fault anyway. When I’d met her, Suri (Dr. Suri to me in those days, but I feel I have the right to call her by her first name now) had been dying slowly of multiple sclerosis. She had met me on a good day; she’d only needed crutches and braces to move. On bad days she’d been confined to a wheelchair, and on really bad days she’d had to stay in bed. I’d healed her, and in the process I’d turned her from a forty-something woman approaching menopause back to a woman in her prime, young and healthy, physically in her 20’s. It had been almost 20 years since I’d done that; Suri would be approaching menopause again, but obviously wasn’t there yet. By now she’d be well past childbearing if I hadn’t de-aged her when I’d healed her disease.

I didn’t know whether Primus had raped her to torture her, to express domination over her, to really make the Peace Force mad at him, or to impregnate her, but I knew he had enough control over his body that if he hadn’t wanted to impregnate her, it wouldn’t have happened. It was entirely possible that the goal of the whole thing had been to force her to carry his child; Suri was an enormously powerful Proxima with high output power mitochondria, and most women with such energy-full mitochondria would have had a power they could use to fight back against Primus. Blocking a Proxima woman’s powers while she was pregnant carried high risk to the fetus if it too was a Proxima; it could prevent the fetus from developing the ability to control its powers as an adult. Suri was rare in that she was incredibly powerful but only telepathic, with no telekinetic abilities, and with Primus’ immunity to telepathy, she’d have had no way to fight back against him even at her full power. If Primus had wanted a powerful woman to pass her mitochondria to his child, and he hadn’t cared about her consent, there were few Proximas who’d make a better target for him. And if that was the case, then the whole thing wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t made her younger, sixteen years ago.

Sapphire blinked. “Wait. You are coming?”

“I just said so. But we have to bring my cats. They need to eat more than the average cat – they’d starve if I left them without food for three or four days, and obviously I can’t ask the neighbors to come feed them.”

“Fine. Sedate them; I don’t need a cat flying all over my car, or meowing and moaning in his carrier the whole time. We’ll put them in one of the suites and make sure they get fed.”

I took my cell phone – it had all of my appointments and contacts in it, and I’d have to call them all to reschedule once I knew how long this was going to take. If I could talk Suri into aborting the fetus, this could probably go very quickly, but I knew how stubborn she was. If I had to save the baby too, I could possibly have to take a few weeks.

Damn Suri. Why the hell was I taking time off my work and spending four hours in a car with one of the people who most annoyed me in the entire world to go save my greatest opponent anyway? From a problem she could just fix herself if she wasn’t so damn stubborn?

But I already knew. I couldn’t let Suryabati Chandrasekhar die; not under any circumstances, and most especially not if she’d asked for me specifically. Our differences were ideological; what she’d done for me went beyond ideology. I would fight her and her people when I had to, but if she was dying and she needed me, I had to go.

#nanowrimo #cold light #wip #supervillains #tw: csa #tw: rape #the trigger warnings are for things being talked about not things we see

9 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

wannaeatramyeon

ramen

frompariswithlove-yasmine

From Paris With Love Yasmine ♥

breadryo

ryo! 🏳️‍⚧️

babygirlbenpaul

૮ . . ྀིა⁩ bambi (ceo of bravis)

tumbling-website

Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay