The newly formed Be The Match BioTherapies Cord Blood Bank Alliance has the potential to open the door to new cell therapies by expanding awareness and enabling researchers and developers to more easily identify and access cord blood units for their work.
Cord blood’s unique, naïve biology often comes up as a reason to use it as an allogeneic cell therapy source material. But as Cleveland Cord Blood Center Executive Director Marcie Finney explains, there are 4 non-biological factors cell and gene therapy developers should also consider.
Umbilical cord blood is an abundant resource that is rich in cellular source material, which makes it an attractive option for cell and gene therapy developers. Get a better understanding of the benefits of using cord blood and considerations for contracting with multiple cord blood banks.
Once discarded as medical waste, cord blood is now recognized as a valuable source of stem cells that is simple to collect and store, rapidly available and is less likely to promote an immune response. Perhaps most significantly, cord blood transplant has historically not required a perfect HLA match due to the relative immaturity of…
For years, umbilical cord blood (UCB) transplant was considered an acceptable alternative unrelated donor graft for the treatment of leukemia including reconstituting a patient’s immune system. Typically UCB transplants could be performed without the worry of precise patient-donor HLA-compatibility. To date, more than 35,000 cord blood transplants have been conducted worldwide. As use of the…