About Us

Mission

The primary mission of the Parent's Guide to Cord Blood is to educate parents with accurate and balanced information about cord blood banking and medical therapies. Since its launch, the Foundation has expanded beyond its original mission and now provides education about all newborn stem cells, not just from cord blood but also from cord tissue and the placenta.

Our website hosts the world's most complete database of cord blood banks, both family and public. The web site explains the motivations for banking umbilical cord blood, and the difference between donating cord blood to a public bank versus paying privately for family storage.

The second mission of the Parent's Guide to Cord Blood is to analyze new developments in medical research or public policy which could expand the use of cord blood.

Organization

The Parent's Guide to Cord Blood started out as a website in 1998. It was a public service project in memory of Shai, the daughter of the founder Dr. Frances Verter. In 2006 a Board of Directors was recruited, and the Parent's Guide to Cord Blood incorporated as a non-profit foundation in 2007. We have received tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(3) of the USA Internal Revenue Code. All donations to support the foundation are eligible for a tax deduction on United States tax returns.

Memberships & Honors

Start Date	Logo	Description
Jan. 1997		Member of American Association of Physicists in Medicine
May 2001		Accredited by Health on the Net Foundation conduct seal no.456237 (HoN shut down Dec. 2022)
June 2007		Member of Scientific & Medical Advisory Panel of Vitalant New Jersey (formerly Community Blood Services)
Nov. 2011		Recipient of the 2011 NMDP Lifeline Award
Dec. 2012		Member of World Marrow Donor Association
Dec. 2012		Member of International Society for Cellular Therapy
May 2014		Founding Member of Perinatal Stem Cell Society
May 2015		Member of Cord Blood Association
May 2016		Member of expert board to Hemafund public cord blood bank
June 2022		Recipient of the 2022 WSCS Advocacy Award

History

• 1998 - Launch of the original website hosted by GeoCities. The initial version only covered family cord blood banks. The design was donated by Arlene E. Jacobs, in memory of her son Kevin W. Jacobs.
• 1999 - Added questionnaire for interviewing family banks.
• 2000 - Added family cord blood banks outside the USA, which at that time only numbered a handful.
• 2001 - Registered the internet domain name "ParentsGuideCordBlood". Accredited by Health on the Net (HON code).
• 2003 - Added public cord blood banks within the USA.
• 2003 - Developed the first listing of diseases treated by cord blood that grouped them into the categories: standard, clinical trial, and experimental.
• 2005 - Moved the site to the host Heller Information Services and adopted a new web design created by Exusu Design of Germany.
• 2007 - Incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit foundation.
• 2008 - Created our first educational brochure.
• 2010 - Modified the list of diseases treated with cord blood to clarify which ones use the patient's own cells versus cells from a donor; again the first web site to do this.
• 2011 - Launched the first searchable map of USA donation hospitals, for which Dr. Verter received the NMDP 2011 Lifeline Award. This was part of a new website created by Fathom Creative that provided searchable databases. Adopted a logo designed by Matthew Stevenson.
• 2012 - Launched a monthly newsletter. Started listing family banks by donation level. Hired Sandeep Kadam for further web development.
• 2013 - Added public cord blood banks in Canada and Mexico.
• 2014 - The Foundation hired Pedro Silva Couto, MSc, as a full time employee. Formed partnerships with AABB and FACT. Launched the first mobile version of the web site.
• 2015 - Launched the first Cord Blood Industry Report that is based on bank surveys.
• 2015 - Our educational brochure has been translated into a dozen languages. Published Umbilical cord blood donation: public or private?
• 2016 - Launched a new website designed by Peter Lozovitsky that moves the searchable databases into Drupal with fully responsive design. The website geolocates readers by IP address and automatically displays the cord blood options and banks in their country. The website also displays information in the language of the reader's browser, if it is one of our translations.
• 2016 - We now include public banks worldwide.
• 2017 - Launched subsidiary CellTrials.org.
• 2017 - Hired SEO consultant to improve the website rank and gradually added web pages with translations into Spanish, Portuguese, German, Czech, Polish, Russian, and Simplified Chinese.
• 2017 - Published The first decade of advanced cell therapy clinical trials using perinatal cells (2005–2015).
• 2018 - Launched educational material about Delayed Cord Clamping.
• 2018 - Published  A dozen years of clinical trials performing advanced cell therapy with perinatal cells.
• 2019 - Published First decade of clinical trials and published studies with mesenchymal stromal cells from umbilical cord tissue.
• 2019 - Published Regulations on cell therapy products in China: a brief history and current status.
• 2020 - Published Development of COVID-19 therapies from birthing tissues and cord blood.
• 2020 - Contributed to publication: Expansion of human mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (hMSCs) in bioreactors using microcarriers: lessons learnt and what the future holds.
• 2021 - Published 2021 Update: Development of COVID-19 therapies from birthing tissues and cord blood.
• 2022 - Pedro Silva Couto completed his PhD. 
• 2023 - Published (with a team of co-authors) Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Cell Therapy for COVID-19: Global Clinical Trial Landscape, Published Safety / Efficacy Outcomes, Cell Product Manufacturing and Clinical Delivery.
• 2023 - Acknowledged by publication: Neuron-Specific Enolase (NSE) as a Biomarker for Autistic Spectrum Disease (ASD).
• 2023 - Published 2023 Update: Development of COVID-19 therapies from birthing tissues and cord blood.
• 2024 - Published Polish regulatory system regarding ATMP hospital exemptions.