The third issue of CTT takes a look back at the development of experimental hematology. Alexander Maximow’s “The Lymphocyte as a stem cell common to different blood elements in embryonic development and during the post-fetal life of mammals” (1909) is a milestone in this development. The article was originally published in German in “Folia Haematologica” and is now available for the first time in Russian and English. It is a centenary remembrance of a development which was carried out by many European researchers at the beginning of the 20th century only to be forgotten for decades and then reactivated after World War II, leading to experimental and clinical bone marrow transplantation.

Alexander Friedenstein — the other giant in Russian hematology — reviews the work by Maximow 80 years later. Friedenstein’s mesenchymal stem cell research gave birth to the field of MSC-based regenerative medicine, which is coming into clinical practice today.

The other 5 articles in this issue deal with stem cell transplantation issues:
-    Factors influencing stem cell mobilization in patients with hematologic malignancies and solid tumors
-    The application of autologous high dose therapy for the treatment of secondary progressive multiple sclerosis
-    Complications like invasive mycosis in patients of allogenic hemopoietic transplantation and iron load
-    A rare glimpse at a potential syngeneic graft versus leukemia effect in CML

We thank our reviewers: Athanasius Anagnostou, Ulrike Bacher, Alexey B. Chukhlovin, Nina Drize, Larisa Fechina, Nicolaus Kröger, Claudia Lange, Heinrich Lellek, Michael Lioznov, Peter Nielsen, Sven Schippling, Carol Stocking.

Boris V. Afanasyev, Gerard Wagemaker, Axel R. Zander