Mesenchymal stem cells from umbilical cord: Do not discard the cord!

Abstract

On 10th February 2007, English entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, best known for his Virgin brand of over 360 companies, announced the establishment of a cord blood bank, the Virgin Health Bank, in London. What makes this bank different is a dual public–private approach. A fifth of the cord blood would be stored for private use for the child or a family member and the rest would be donated to the public part of the bank which will be accessible to anyone in the world who needs it, at no cost. Additionally, Branson has pledged to donate his 50% of proceeds from Virgin Health Bank to researchers investigating the potential of cord blood stem cells [1]. The idea for the dual bank emerged when he was visited by a senior director of the National Blood Center, asking for his support in a charitable role, because children were dying through lack of umbilical cord blood. Initially Sir Richard offered 3 million pounds to the National Health Service to help them increase their storage capacity for umbilical cord blood, but the center was not comfortable with accepting funds from private sources. So Sir Richard decided to set up a company to do the job. This is an initiative that should be applauded but we want to draw attention to a very important and urgent aspect. The routine procedure in umbilical cord banks has been to store the blood and discard other tissues, such as the cord and/or placenta, which is a much better source of mesenchymal stem cells than blood [2]. Umbilical cord