Your Guide to Umbilical Cord Blood Banking |
Financial Con: Why bother? Common sense suggests there is no reason to process a sample when you don’t know if it will ever be used. Separation of MNC adds to the laboratory cost of processing, and this cost is passed on to the consumer. Financial Pro: Lower storage costs
The smaller the volume of the final […]
A few private Cord Blood banks freeze the blood whole, while most process it. There are two stages of processing: Volume Reduction and Separation.
Volume Reduction can be accomplished either by sedimentation or spinning in a centrifuge. (Note: sedimentation uses a chemical called “Hespan Starch” or “Hetastarch” which is made by Dupont Pharmaceuticals.) Afterwards, the blood […]
Answer: Probably. Some hereditary disorders cause the metabolism to gradually destroy the nervous system, as well as damage other organs. One class of hereditary disorders is leukodystrophies, in which the cells sheathing nerves are improperly developed or maintained, and gradually break down. Another class of hereditary disorders is storage disorders, in which cells are damaged […]
Answer: Probably. In the lab, Stem Cells from umbilical Cord Blood can be induced to develop into nerve cells. When neural cells derived from blood Stem Cells are transplanted into lab mice, the cells have been shown to survive and function. The hope is that, eventually, there will be established procedures to infuse Cord Blood […]
Answer: Almost certainly. Examples:
Press Release 1 Nov 2000 from StemCells, Inc. (Nasdaq: STEM) “First Identification of Purified Blood Stem Cells as a Source of Mature Liver Cells; Published in Nature Medicine Nature 20 June 2002 vol.417. Catherine Verfaillie of the U. Minnesota Medical School and her team claim to have extracted “multipotent adult progenitor cells” […]
This website is devoted to parent education about Cord Blood, and therefore the research sections are strictly about studies using Stem Cells from Cord Blood. However, to talk about Stem Cells without mentioning politics is like avoiding the elephant in the middle of the room.
Many people object to research on embryonic Stem Cells. […]
If you try to read research articles about Stem Cells, you will need to know some basic nomenclature:
Embryonic Stem Cells are found in newly fertilized eggs, they are the foundation for building life. They have the ability to divide almost endlessly to make more embryonic cells, which is called proliferation.
Once an embryo […]
Anybody who follows news reports knows that Stem Cells have been found in many parts of the human body, including discarded baby teeth. However, the concentration of Stem Cells in most body parts is a few cells per milliliter. There are only 3 sources of Stem Cells which are used for Stem […]
Stem Cells are defined as cells which meet 3 criteria:
They keep renewing themselves by dividing to make more Stem Cells.
Stem Cells are not specialized: they don’t have a specific task in the body.
Under the right conditions, Stem Cells will differentiate: They will divide to make one Stem Cell plus one cell which is more […]