Umbilical Cord Blood

Cord blood, also known as placental blood, is the blood that remains in umbilical cord and placenta following a live birth. There are 3 sources of stem cells: umbilical cord blood, embryonic cells and bone marrow. Adult stem cells from bone marrow have limited uses while embryonic stem cell research is a major area of controversy. Umbilical cord blood stem cells are more proliferate and can be successfully substituted for embryonic stem cells in research and treatment.

In particular, embryonic cell lines, autologous embryonic stem cells generated through therapeutic cloning, and highly plastic adult stem cells from the umbilical cord blood or bone marrow are touted as promising candidates.

Human umbilical cord blood cells have many advantages as grafts for cell transplantation because of the immaturity of newborn cells compared with adult cells. In contrast to their hematopoietic and mesenchymal potential, it remains unclear whether umbilical cord blood cells have endodermal competences.

Furthermore, umbilical cord blood provides no ethical problems for basic suties and clinical applications. Umbilical cord blood cells can be collected without any harm to the newborn infant, and umbilical cord blood hematopoietic stem cell grafts can be cryopreserved and transplanted to a host after thawing without losing their repopulating ability. For these reasons, umbilical cord blood could be a prominent source of cells for transplantation in various diseases. It remains obscure, however, whether umbilical cord blood contains stem/progenitor cells leading to endodermal cells, including hepatocytes.

Human umbilical cord blood cells can proliferate hepatocyte lineage cells in the original primary culture system in vitro, and differentiate into functionally mature hepatocytes in vivo. To our knowledge, this is the first evidence that human umbilical cord blood contains cells that produce endoderm-proliferating cells.

While much research still needs to be done, there have already been some significant advances in stem cell therapies. Researchers are looking into the ability of cord blood stem cells to replace or repair damaged tissues and organs. Since these cells can repair damaged tissues, they could be used to treat Parkinson, heart disease, stroke, spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis and diabetes.