Cord Blood Banking

Cord Blood Banking

• Recently, many celebrities are preserving their baby’s cord blood because of an opinion that it can be used for ”Regenerative Medicine”.

 Role of Cord Blood

• Cord blood is a rich source of stem cells that can potentially be used in the treatment of certain blood, immune, and metabolic disorders.
• Private stem cell banking companies offer community or social banking options where stored cord blood is accessible to registered individuals.
• These community banks have a larger pool of donors, increasing the chances of finding a match for patients in need.
• Umbilical cord blood is a rich source of stem cells that can potentially develop into different types of cells, and be used, via a transplant, in the treatment of certain blood, immune and metabolic disorders. 
• These are known as Haematopoetic Stem Cell Transplantations (HSCT) and require certain markers to match between the cord blood and the patient, to work.

Issues

• The use of cord blood in transplants has declined in recent years, with haploidentical transplants (It uses healthy, blood-forming cells from a half-matched family member donor to replace the unhealthy ones) becoming more common and successful. 
• While emerging technologies may improve the utilization of cord blood in the future, the present trend shows the under-utilization of stored cord blood.

To read about Genome Sequencing, Click here.

Practice Questions for Prelims

Consider the following statements about stem cells:
1. It is a completely differentiated cell of a multi-cellular organism.
2. They are found in mammals.
3. They are capable of giving rise to indefinitely more cells of the same type.

Select the correct answer using the following codes:
a) Only 1
b) Only 1 and 3
c) Only 2 and 3
d) All of the above

Ans. c)

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