| By :
Adrianna Noton
Umbilical cord blood used to be considered as a biological waste but now it is used as a source of stems cells. It is collected from the placenta through the umbilical cord shortly after birth and is frozen at -150 C using liquid Nitrogen for future use. It can be used in applications where other types of hematopoietic stem cells or hematopoietic progenator cells (HSCs/HPCs) are used. They are found in bone marrow and peripheral blood, are used. HPCs can be transplanted to a patient to stimulate the immune system for the treatment of Leukemia or non-malignant immune deficiencies. Other conditions such as severe aplastic anemia and congenital sickle cell anemia can also benefit from this treatment. If a child has their own stem cells available, and ever needs them, there would be no risk of graft-versus-host disease. Others advantages of these hematopoietic stems cells (HSCs) over those from bone marrow or peripheral blood are that they tend to be less mature, so fewer cells are required for the treatment. The requirements for a match are also reduced as these HSCs can be suitable to a greater number of patients. There are two different types of blood bank. Private banks will store a persons stem cells for their own personal use later on. Public banks will only store a donated sample and it would then be available to any patient that is a match. A minimum quantity is required for an adult transplant to be successful so if the volume does not meet the requirement, then the donation has to be rejected. In either case, permission from the mother has to be granted before it can be collected. The mother should also be in a sound state of mind and cannot be anesthetized or sedated. If this is the case then partial permission can be granted before the procedure with confirmation after the birth. A thorough screening of the medical history of the mother will be done and there should be no history of congenital diseases which can be transferred during a transplant. Various tests are done to find and contamination and the human leukocyte type is determined before it is frozen. In order to protect the cells the temperature is gradually reduced to around -80 C before being introduced into the liquid nitrogen. Only the hematopoietic stem cells can be used and red blood cells are removed before the storage because they tend to rupture upon thawing. Different methods are used to separate the different cells and in some cases the liquid or plasma is also removed to take up less space in frozen storage. Either small cryotubes or plastic bags are used for storage. One sample can be divided into several different cryotubes and then boxed together. This would allow portions of it to be thawed if a use is ever developed for smaller quantities of blood as it cannot be thawed and then frozen again. When stored in plastic it takes up more space but it allows for segmented tube sections that store small amounts HPCs which is convenient for testing.
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