Cord Blood Stem Cells Information

What is the difference from Embryonic Stem Cells and Cord Blood Stem Cells?

My husband and I currently have 4 children. At each of their births, we chose to have their cord blood collected and their stem cells stored at the Cord Blood Registry facility in Tucson, Arizona. When our first child was born in 1999, many people still did not know about cord blood and stem cells. Our youngest is 12 months old and it seems that more people are aware and interested in stem cell storage/usage. I have wondered a lot about the difference in ESC and the cord blood stem cells collected at birth. There are literally thousands of baby's born daily, why aren't mother's advised and/or given the option to donate their baby's cord blood? It may depend on morals or beliefs of the mother. Even if ESC's are better, shouldn't we still be concerned about saving the stem cells that are in cord blood? Is it a funding issue? I just couldn't waste my kids' cord blood, but #3 did have a small collection of only 29cc's (<1oz.).

Public Comments

1. Embryonic-Like Stem Cells Found in Umbilical Cord Blood By Steven Reinberg HealthDay Reporter August 17, 2005 WEDNESDAY, Aug. 17 (HealthDay News) -- In a potential medical breakthrough, British and U.S. researchers have produced embryonic-like cells from umbilical cord blood. If these stem cells are, in fact, similar to embryonic stem cells, their discovery may speed the development of treatments for diseases such as diabetes, liver failure, spinal injury, stroke and heart disease, Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis, experts say. An additional advantage of generating embryonic stem cells from umbilical cord blood is that it bypasses ethical objections surrounding the use of embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells have the potential to become any type of cell in the body, but because they come from human embryos their use in medicine is controversial, pitting science against those who believe that using these cells destroys human life. The report appears in the August issue of Cell Proliferation. "This is the first time that a team has been able to get stem cells from a non-embryonic source with embryonic stem cell characteristics," said study co-author Nico Forraz, a senior researcher at the Kingston University School of Life Sciences, in London. "It's incredibly exciting," said study co-author Larry Denner, associate director of research at the Stark Diabetes Center, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston. "Being able to use pluripotent stem cells (stem cells that can become any type of cell) that are available from cord blood really speaks for itself. The potential is there." In their research, the British-American team developed techniques that enabled them to remove all the mature cells from the cord blood, revealing a very small population of cells with qualities similar to those seen in embryonic stem cells. Denner noted that these cells are very rare. "We take a third of a cup of cord blood, and we get 50,000 potential stem cells, and of these there may only be a couple that are embryonic-like stem cells," he said. In the future, Forraz believes these cells from cord blood might be used to treat diabetes and other diseases. "This offers a great source of flexibility compared to embryonic stem cells. Despite all the ethical controversy, scientifically, there are already over 1 million cord blood samples banked. It widens the possibility of clinical applications," he said. Using these cells, the researchers have been able to make liver tissue, Forraz said. "Using this system, we are also working on making blood vessels," he added. "We would use these blood vessels to vascularize the liver tissue we would make. You could also use these engineered vessels to treat cardiovascular disease." Denner said that his team has also shown that these umbilicus-derived cells can become pancreatic cells. "We think that this population of cells can give rise to a lot of different types of cells," he said. However, the Texas researcher remains cautious. He stressed that it's still not clear whether or not these cells are truly embryonic stem cells. "They certainly share many of characteristics we have tested so far," he said. "They have a lot of key characteristics with embryonic stem cells; whether they're identical or not is still a question. But if they act like embryonic stem cells, it may not be necessary to prove they are identical," he said. One expert considers the findings potentially important, but inconclusive. "It's very promising," said Dr. Hugh Taylor, an associate professor at Yale School of Medicine. "But markers on cells do not necessarily mean that they are functionally embryonic stem cells." Taylor believes the researchers need to prove that these cells can become many different types of cells, just like embryonic stem cells, "before we can be assured that they found what they think they found." Being able to generate some cell types, such as liver or blood vessels, is not surprising, Taylor said. "These cells may be closer to embryonic stem cells than adult stem cells," he said. "But we would really like to see these cells become many different cell types like we can get from embryonic stem cells." So embryonic stem cells are found in the cord blood that is stored! http://www.cordblood.com/cord_blood_news/stem_cell_news/article_embryonic_like_stem_cells.asp
2. very basically the difference is that cord blood stem cells are not pluripotent, they have some differences and can't become any kind of cell. Although they can become potentially a number of other cells.
3. actually many people working on research in cord blood stem cells (HSCs) believe that as of current technology, we have no use for stored HSCs. True, HSCs transplantation has high potential to save your kid when he has a hematological disorder in future, but there is currently no means of "expanding" that small amount of HSCs harvested from birth. So until somebody comes up with a reliable means of expanding these cells, you only have enough HSCs to save your kid up to a certain age. Beyond say the age of 5, there is too little cells to reconsitute your kid's blood system i have no expertise in ESCs, but we generally don't have a ESC bank for various reasons. True, ESCs are more primitive, meaning they can differntiate into a whole lot more cells, even into HSCs. but we know too little about ESCs, it will take too long before we can do anything with them them. Also I would imagine it would be totally dangerous to extract cells from your fetus at such an early stage of pregnancy.