Pakistani patient Tahseen Dilbar poses for a photo with a medical staff member at Shanghai General Hospital on Thursday. [Photo provided to China Daily] Foreigner receives treatment to help him generate his own blood cells A patient from Pakistan has become the first foreigner to receive umbilical cord blood in China as part of a hematopoietic stem cell transplant to restore his ability to produce his own healthy blood cells. Tahseen Dilbar received an umbilical cord blood transfusion from Shanghai Cord Blood Bank under China Stem Cell Group, the only licensed umbilical cord blood bank in the city. More than 3,200 Chinese people received the treatment ahead of him. The 30-year-old Dilbar, a father of three, is recovering at Shanghai General Hospital in Shanghai's Songjiang district, where he received the transplant on Wednesday and Thursday. Umbilical cord blood was injected into his body along with half-matched stem cells donated by his elder brother. Half-matched hematopoietic stem cell transplants usually invite strong rejection from the recipient's body, said Wang Chun, director of the hospital's hematology department. The addition of matched umbilical cord blood can effectively reduced the chance of rejection. Dilbar is expected to regain his ability to produce healthy blood cells in two weeks and fully recover in around two months, the doctor added. Pakistani patient Tahseen Dilbar receives treatment at Shanghai General Hospital on Thursday. He is the first foreigner to use umbilical cord blood in a hematopoietic stem cell transplant in China. [Photo provided to China Daily] Dilbar was diagnosed in 2010 with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a group of disorders characterized by bone marrow's inability to grow enough healthy blood cells. Over the past eight years, he had relied on blood transfusions to survive, but his condition has continued to worsen. By the end of last year, he had developed a high risk of developing acute myeloid leukemia, which usually features the rapid growth of abnormal cells that build up in the bone marrow and blood and interfere with normal blood cells. As acute leukemia, AML progresses rapidly and is typically fatal within weeks or months if left untreated. Stem cell transplantation is regarded as the most effective treatment for MDS. But Dilbar failed to find a full match among his three brothers and sisters. One elder brother's hematopoietic stem cells showed only a half-match, according to Dilbar's wife, Jasmin Tahira, who accompanied her husband to Shanghai for the transplant. While Pakistan can perform transplants using completely matched hematopoietic stem cells, it is not up to handling half-matched ones, Tahira said. Doctors in Pakistan suggested reaching out for treatment in China, where Wang and his team are known as pioneers in the transplant of half-matched hematopoietic stem cells. The addition of matched umbilical cord blood is an essential part of such transplants, Wang said. Upon Dilbar's arrival at the hospital in March, Wang filed an application for a match with the China Marrow Donor Program, as well as with seven umbilical cord blood hematopoietic stem cell banks across the nation. He later heard from the Shanghai branch that a match had been found. We feel very satisfied with the treatment and the doctors are very good, Tahira said. The family will stay for another two months in China before Dilbar's expected full recovery. trio spinnerswristbands with a messageflash drive wristbandwristbands onlineglow wristbands
Kenneth Madsen, president of Pandora Jewelry Asia-Pacific, calls himself an "entrepreneur at heart" with a passion for the commercial aspects of running a company."You could never put me in a business that has been running for 30 years, growing 2 percent each year and optimizing on cost. That's not me. I love to grow a business and explore new cultures, new countries as well as new markets," he tells China Daily.Though born and raised in Denmark, Madsen has been living out of the country for years, having spent a long time in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.He joined Pandora in 2009 as managing director for Central and Eastern Europe in Warsaw, Poland, where he built up the brand as a new startup from zero within four years. With two or three people in his team, Madsen made business plans in Starbucks at the very beginning. The company quickly expanded with the joint efforts, taking root in Poland and having found distributors in Russia. Next, it went to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and opened stores there.Madsen moved to Hong Kong five years ago to take over the nascent business here."We had to set up a new team and close down some stores that were not working. But, this kind of resetting and then building up the business is definitely where I get my energy from."Before Madsen's venture into the jewelry business, he had been associated mainly with sales and marketing. The industries involved ranged from Danish beer brewer Carlsberg and music publishing company EMI to footwear retailer Ecco."I had been with Ecco shoes for six years when I decided to change. Part of it was because I was familiar with Pandora from back home in Denmark," he says. "The work I did for Ecco shoes before has helped me put more life into a jewelry store. We try to modernize a little bit in how to operate as a jewelry business."According to Madsen, the jewelry business is quite old-fashioned. Back in the old days, normally there were two collections per year, spring-summer and autumn-winter. People would visit a traditional jewelry store once or twice a year, depending on their consumption levels.His early career equipped him with the ability to combine the fast fashion trend with traditional business, making it possible there's always something new at Pandora's stores."We have seven launches every year. It's relatively affordable to buy one charm and build a little bit on the bracelet," Madsen says."What we're trying to do at Pandora is actually adding innovation to the traditional business and that's a big part of our success."
