The future of umbilical
cord stem cell research.

Umbilical cord stem cell research history.

Umbilical cord stem cell research has been ongoing for a number of years now. The first successful umbilical cord blood transplant was conducted in 1988 and the blood from one baby's cord was transfused into a 5-year-old sibling's body. The operation was entirely successful and the patient recovered from a very serious form of anemia. Since that date research has been conducted into further uses and more regular use of umbilical cord blood transfusions and there have subsequently been 2000 successful transfusions since that date. Considering the hundreds of thousands of patients that contract stem cell related diseases such as leukemia this figure may not seem so impressive at first glance but there are reasons this number isn't higher.

Since the first umbilical cord stem cell transplant.

Umbilical cord stem cell research has been conducted ever since that first transfusion but the lack of willing donors has played a major part in preventing the research to step up a gear. The end result is that research had been slow. However, stem cell research in general has been making it into the papers more and more in the last few years and suddenly the whole world is beginning to pay more attention to the possibilities. Securing your child's health and ensuring that they have a contingency in the unfortunate event they contract certain diseases is every parent's dream and that dream can become reality to some extent. Regrettably, though, cord blood research companies and storage facilities are run on fairly tight budgets and this means that there is never likely to be a huge amount of research conducted without further action.

The controversy surrounding some stem cell research.

While some forms of stem cell research are shrouded in controversy umbilical cord stem cell research is not one such area. Embryonic stem cell research is considered unethical because the removal of stem cells from an embryo means destroying that embryo. The work of Woo Suk Hwang and stem cells research has given us therapeutic cloning allowing researchers to clone embryos but again this is a controversial act. Apart from embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells that do not show the levels of plasticity that researchers would like, umbilical cord blood is the only real alternative.

Concentrating stem cell research.

Current research is being concentrated on not only the storage of cord blood and potency of stored cord blood but also on the potential uses for umbilical cord blood. It has already been discovered that stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood can be used in the same way as stem cells taken from bone marrow but because of the plasticity that primitive stem cells taken from umbilical cords shows, they may be used to treat many other degenerative diseases. More recent umbilical cord stem cell research has shown it could be possible to cure congenital heart failure and Parkinson's to name only two.

A need for more umbilical cord blood donations.

Umbilical cord stem cell research is already proving to be a great success and the continuation of this research is vital if stem cell transplants are to be regularly used in treating life-threatening diseases. The use of umbilical cord blood will take a lot of the pressure away from bone marrow donors, and in particular the lack of donors when compared to the number of patients who require the transfusion. In order for research into the viability and potential uses of umbilical cord blood and the stem cells it contains, however, more donations of cord blood are required and urgently.

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