Collection, processing, and banking of umbilical cord blood stem cells for clinical use in transplantation and regenerative medicine

Abstract

Cord blood banking has been the focus of many medical centers as it can provide a virtually unlimited source of ethnically-diverse stem-cell donors. In addition, its recent use in several regenerative medicine clinical trials has further spurred the motivation to collect and bank these stem cells. In the current study, we review the latest developments in cord blood banking. We have banked over 195,000 collections at our facility. Collections were processed by either Ficoll or AXP methodologies. An average 95% processing efficiency was obtained. The overall failure rate was less than 4% in terms of samples containing too few cells to be clinically useful. Processed samples were frozen in cryovials or bags and banked in a liquid nitrogen Dewar. In conclusion, it is possible to simply and reproducibly harvest, process, and bank cord blood samples using current technology.