News

Feb 2019   Zhao Jiaxin was the first child in China to receive a cord blood transplant as a cure for very early onset irritable bowel disease that is often lethal to newborns. Children’s Hospital of Fudan University has the most successful transplants for VEO-IBS to date. While still rare, the incidence of this genetic disorder is increasing in China and the only effective therapy is a stem cell transplant.

Feb 2019   Certified genetic counselors (CGC) are healthcare professionals who have advanced training in medical genetics and in counseling. Using these skills, they are able to guide and support patients and their families through the process of making healthcare decisions. Families who are navigating their clinical trial opportunities may benefit from working with a specialized CGC who can provide education and information about treatment options, participate in eligibility screening, and discuss potential risks and benefits of participating in research studies.

Jan 2019   When Asia experienced developmental delays her parents took her to Duke University for reinfusion of her own cord blood stem cells. Today Asia can keep up with other children her age.

Jan 2019   The Cell Care Group dominates cord blood banking in both Australia and Canada and is committed to research that will expand the medical applications of cord blood.

Jan 2019   Asymmetrex has developed Kinetic Stem Cell counting that can determine the number of active stem cells in a cord blood unit from a testing segment. The Asymmetrex method relies on the asymmetry in the growth patterns of stem cells versus committed progenitor cells during culture. It is hoped that adoption of this technology will solve the decades-old problem that the quantitative doses of stem cell therapies are uncertain.

Dec 2018   The AABB Annual Meeting Highlights Conference and Exhibition in the Middle East 2019 will be held 25-26 January 2019 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. This meeting once again brings highlights from the 2018 AABB Annual Meeting directly to professionals from across the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Dec 2018   StemCyte is expanding their cord blood donation program at a time when most public banks are closing collection centers. StemCyte’s California laboratory is one of a handful around the world that is accredited by both AABB and FACT.  World-wide, StemCyte has provided over 2200 cord blood units to over 350 transplant centers, to treat over 58 conditions in 38 countries.

Dec 2018   Vitalant is the new brand name for all 10 of the blood centers owned by Blood Systems. As part of the reorganization under the Vitalant brand, the public cord blood bank at Community Blood Services (now Vitalant New Jersey) has taken over the cord blood operations of the Institute of Transfusion Medicine (ITxM) in Chicago.

Dec 2018   "It is incumbent on the medical institutions that delivered babies with immediate cord clamping to review their records and attempt to evaluate any long term health impact for those infant donors". Dr. Norman Ende, pioneer in the development of cord blood therapy, believes that infants who received more cord blood at birth have greater protection against medical problems later in life. This has never been tested in retrospective studies. He calls for medical institutions to test this hypothesis by reviewing their records, identifying these donors, and tracking them down to learn their health histories.

Nov 2018   Due to consolidation in the ownership of family cord blood banks, the world's top 10 companies manage more than 60% of privately stored newborn stem cells.