Cord Blood Stem Cells

To date, human umbilical cord blood (CB) has been employed successfully in over 50.000 allogeneic (unrelated and sibling) hematopoietic stem cell transplantations. The cord blood transplantation results in disease-free survival comparable to that of unrelated adult donor (bone marrow or peripheral stem cell) transplantation. Allograft access to ethnic minorities, flexibility of transplantation date, low risk of chronic graft-versus-host disease and relapse are significant advantages of cord blood transplantation (CBT). Based on the less – stringent HLA matching requirements, CBT has been shown to extend access to the majority of adults. One of the limiting factors in CBT as delayed engraftment and immune recovery was improved over the last decade by the combination of haploidentical transplant with either a single or double CBT or in combination with ex-vivo expansion of CD34+ cells. In addition, cord blood has been under investigation in several clinical studies for neuronal disorders as cerebral palsy, stroke and autism. Cord-blood subpopulations as endothelial cells, mesenchymal stromal cells (CB MSC), unrestricted somatic stem cells (USSC) and cells derived from the cord (umbilical cord mesenchymal-like fibroblasts) were approached in preclinical and clinical trials and displayed as CBMSC unique biological capacities as cartilage formation in vivo. It has been extensively documented for hematopoietic stem cells from cord blood that they differ from the adult counterpart with respect to their proliferative capacity and lack of external damage. Long telomeres, low virus load and good intrinsic damage repair capacity are making CD34+ cells from cord blood the perfect raw material for reprogramming towards iPSC’s products according to new regulations in the field of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMP).