Cord Blood Banking
Cord blood (CB) is an alternative source of stem cells for hematopoietic and immunologic reconstitution of patients that do not have matched related donors. The functions of public CB banks include collection (CB harvesting, maternal consent, and evaluation of donor risk factors), processing (to remove red blood cells and reduce product volume), cryopreservation and long-term storage in automated liquid nitrogen freezers, testing, and transportation of the cryopreserved CB products to the transplant centers. CB transplantation is well established in clinical practice, and several clinical trials aim to overcome some of the challenges of CB grafts, particularly the relatively low cell content and prolonged time to engraftment, by increasing the number of hematopoietic progenitor cells (ex vivo expansion). Additionally, CB-derived novel treatments for tissue repair and regeneration are currently being investigated.
