Commercial Cord Blood Banking

News:Recently, there has been growing concern regarding the aggressively promoted concept of cord blood banking.

Facts:

About Cord Blood Banking:

• Cord blood is the blood from the baby that is left in the umbilical cord and placenta after birth.It contains special cells called hematopoietic stem cells that can be used to treat some types of diseases.
• Cord blood banking is the process of collecting the cord blood and extracting and cryogenically freezing its stem cells and other cells of the immune system for potential future medical use.

About Stem Cells:

• Stem cells are special human cells that have the ability to develop into many different cell types from muscle cells to brain cells.In some cases, they also have the ability to repair damaged tissue.

Types of Stem Cells:

Embryonic stem cells:

• Embryonic stem cells supply new cells for an embryo as it grows and develops into a baby.These stem cells are said to be pluripotent which means they can change into any cell in the body.

Adult Stem Cells:

• Adult stem cells supply new cells as an organism grows and to replace cells that get damaged.They are said to be multipotent which means they can only change into some cells in the body not any cell.

Induced pluripotent stem cells:

• Induced pluripotent stem cells or ‘iPS cells’, are stem cells that scientists make in the laboratory.
• ‘Induced’ means that they are made in the lab by taking normal adult cells, like skin or blood cells, and reprogramming them to become stem cells.Just like embryonic stem cells,they are pluripotent so they can develop into any cell type.