Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 14
Cord Blood Stem Cells and Regenerative
Medicine
David T. Harris
Abstract Umbilical cord blood (CB) can provide a virtually unlimited source of
diverse stem cells that can be used for hematologic transplants as well as in a
variety of regenerative medicine applications. Cord blood units can be frozen and
preserved in liquid nitrogen dewars for prolonged periods of time, having been
frozen in time at the peak of their biological activity. Multipotent stem cells are
available in large numbers in both umbilical cord blood (CB) and cord tissue (CT).
CB stem cells are capable of giving rise to hematopoietic, epithelial, endothelial,
and neural tissues both in vitro and in vivo. CT stem cells are capable of giving
rise to various mesenchymal lineages, including bone, cartilage, and fat. Thus, CB
and CT stem cells are candidates to develop stem-cell-based therapies for a wide
variety of diseases, including cardiovascular, ophthalmic, orthopedic, neurologi-
cal, and endocrine diseases. CB and CT have now been used in several regener-
ative medicine clinical studies, examples of which include cerebral palsy and
non-healing bone fractures. CB and CT represent an invaluable source of stem
cells that have both immediate and future applications for the individual donor.
14.1 Introduction
The difficulty of finding suitable HLA-matched bone marrow donors for patients
needing stem cell transplants, particularly patients from ethnic minorities [
1
,
2
], as
well as complications such as graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) which can occur
