How to use this website

This web site is useful for:

• Parents deciding about cord blood banking
• Parents donating to a public bank
  
• Parents choosing a private bank
• Patients researching therapies using cord blood stem cells
  
• Students
  
• Reporters
• Investors 

There is more information within this website than you really need to accomplish any one of these goals. The following summaries provide a short list of "must read" pages in each category.

You should read:

• Medical Motivations for Banking Cord Blood first, followed by
• Diseases treated by blood stem cells
• Research on Umbilical Cord Blood, which is in a FAQ format
• News Reports, which is in the format of a timeline

You should read:

• The page about types of cord blood banks:  This explains that some public banks collect primarily for transplants and others primarily for research.  There are also operating differences which are driven by finances, because some public banks are Non-Profit and some are For-Profit.
• the list of public banks

You should read:

• Go to the page of Bank Lists, and review the choices in your geographic region.
  
• Check the corresponding Table of Company Features & Pricing.
• Suggested Questionnaire for interviewing Private Cord Blood Banks.

If you are seriously interested in a particular bank, you should request and study a copy of their current contract. For banks in the USA, you may also be interested to see the Customer Feedback from other parents who used that bank.

You should read:

• Diseases treated by blood stem cells
• Research on Umbilical Cord Blood
  

If you are a curious person who wants to know more about cord blood banking, all pages may be relevent

• Return to the "student" category and read the basics.

Be advised that I do not talk to anybody who hasn't first read the website and come up with a list of questions.

• The Bank Lists are sorted by geographic region.  For any given bank, the available information about its structure and corporate history is posted below their "Services" as "Additional Information".  
  
• The Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for cord blood banking are published on the internet by the COrd BLood Transplantation study (COBLT) .