Umblical Cord Blood Banking

As I know I've mentioned on this site before, I work at the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP).

There is a lot of confusion out there as to what we do, and there is an abundance of information to be found at our website, www.marrow.org. A down and dirty summary - we operate the largest listing of volunteer donors and cord blood units in the world. Once a patient diagnosed with life-threatening diseases such as leukemia, lymphoma and genetic and immune system disorders finds a compatible donor within our registry, we coordinate the transplants of stem cells (healthy blood forming cells) for that patient. We receive funding and approval by the government every so many years to operate as the national registry for marrow donors.

We coordinate three main types of transplants - marrow, PBSC, and cord blood. Many people have heard of bone marrow transplants. We have been coordinating this type of transplant since 1987. Now, transplant of Peripheral Blood Stem Cell (PBSC) is our largest volume transplant type. Growing at a very fast pace (and in the news a lot these days) are umbilical cord blood transplants.

The above is all background for what I really want to talk about - cord blood. Most people hear cord blood and they immediately think about embryonic stem cell research. COMPLETELY UNRELATED. Embryonic stem cell research uses stem cells derived from a four- or five-day-old fetus created (fertilized) in a lab; and then use of those cells for research purposes.

Umbilical cord blood transplants use stem cells extracted from the umbilical cord after a mother gives birth. The umbilical cord is usually just discarded after delivery, so using the blood inside it is essentially making use of what once was considered medical waste.

Today our Registry includes more than 45,000 cord blood units, housed in public cord blood banks. Many people do not even know the option to donate their baby's cord blood even exists. All they've heard about is private cord blood banking, because private banks have the funding to do a great deal of advertising in magazines and on TV. Essentially, private banks are a rip-off.

Okay, now all of the ABOVE is a lead-in to this good article: read it, enjoy it, laugh at the poor private cord blood banks.